Shinobi Chakra, Wizard Magic
by Demon Flame
Summary: Naruto and Shikamaru are hired by Dumbledore for different tasks during Harry's fifth year. watch how differently things will turn out when you throw shinobi into the picture. Will Be Undergoing repairs to plot holes.
1. Chapter 1

Harry had no particular feeling about the Dursleys leaving. It made no difference to him whether they were in the house or not. He could not even summon the energy to get up and turn on his bedroom light. The room grew steadily darker around him as he lay listening to the night sounds through the window he kept open all the time, waiting for the blessed moment when Hedwig returned. The empty house creaked around him. The pipes gurgled. Harry ay there in a kind of stupor, thinking of nothing, suspended in misery. Then, quite distinctly, he heard a crash in the kitchen below.

He sat bolt upright, listening intently. The Dursleys couldn't be back, it was much too soon, and in any case he hadn't heard their car.

There was silence for a few seconds, then voices.

Burglars, he thought, sliding off the bed on to his feet - but a split second later it occurred to him that burglars would keep their voices down, and whoever was moving around in the kitchen was certainly not troubling to do so.

He snatched up his wand from the bedside table and stood lacing his bedroom door, listening with all his might. Next moment, he jumped as the lock gave a loud click and his door swung open.

Harry stood motionless, staring through the open doorway at the dark upstairs landing, straining his ears for further sounds, but none came. He hesitated for a moment, and then moved swiftly and silently out of his room to the head of the stairs.

His heart shot upwards into his throat. There were people standing in the shadowy hall below, silhouetted against the streetlight glowing through the glass door; eight or nine of them, all, as far as he could see, looking up at him.

"Lower your wand, boy, before you take someone's eye out," said a low, growling voice.

Harry's heart was thumping uncontrollably. He knew that voice, but he did not lower his wand.

"Professor Moody?" he said uncertainly.

"I don't know so much about "Professor"," growled the voice, "never got round to much teaching, did I? Get down here; we want to see you properly."

Harry lowered his wand slightly but did not relax his grip on it, nor did he move. He had very good reason to be suspicious. He had recently spent nine months in what he had thought was Mad-Eye Moody's company only to find out that it wasn't Moody at all, but an impostor; an impostor, moreover, who had tried to kill Harry before being unmasked. But before he could make a decision about what to do next, a second, slightly hoarse voice floated upstairs.

"It's all right, Harry. We've come to take you away."

Harry's heart leapt. He knew that voice, too, though he hadn't heard it for over a year.

"P-Professor Lupin?" he said disbelievingly. "Is that you?"

"Why are we all standing in the dark?" said a third voice, this one completely unfamiliar, a woman's. "Lumos."

A wand-tip flared, illuminating the hall with magical light. Harry blinked. The people below were crowded around the loot of the stairs, gazing up at him intently, some craning their heads for a better look.

Remus Lupin stood nearest to him. Though still quite young, Lupin looked tired and rather ill; he had more grey hairs than when Harry had last said goodbye to him and his robes were more patched and shabbier than ever. Nevertheless, he was smiling broadly at Harry, who tried to smile back despite his state of shock.

"Oooh, he looks just like I thought he would," said the witch who was holding her lit wand aloft. She looked the youngest there; she had a pale heart-shaped face, dark twinkling eyes, and short spiky hair that was a violent shade of violet. "Wotcher, Harry!"

"Yeah, I see what you mean, Remus," said a bald black wizard standing furthest back - he had a deep, slow voice and wore a single gold hoop in his ear – "he looks exactly like James."

"Except the eyes," said a wheezy-voiced, silver-haired wizard at the back. "Lily's eyes."

Mad-Eye Moody, who had long grizzled grey hair and a large chunk missing from his nose, was squinting suspiciously at Harry through his mismatched eyes. One eye was small, dark and beady, the other large, round and electric blue - the magical eye that could see through walls, doors and the back of Moody's own head.

"Are you quite sure it's him, Lupin?" he growled. "'I'd be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him. We ought to ask him something only the real Potter would know. Unless anyone brought any Veritaserum?"

"Harry, what form does your Patronus take?" Lupin asked.

"A stag," said Harry nervously.

"That's him, Mad-Eye," said Lupin.

Very conscious of everybody still staring at him, Harry descended the stairs, stowing his wand in the back pocket of his jeans as he came.

"Don't put your wand there, boy!" roared Moody. "What if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!"

"Who d'you know who's lost a buttock?" the violet-haired woman asked Mad-Eye interestedly.

"Never you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket!" growled Mad-Eye. "Elementary wand-safety, nobody bothers about it anymore." He stumped off towards the kitchen. "And I saw that," he added irritably, as the woman rolled her eyes towards the ceiling.

Lupin held out his hand and shook Harry's.

"How are you?" he asked, looking closely at Harry.

"F-fine . . ."

Harry could hardly believe this was real. Four weeks with nothing, not the tiniest hint of a plan to remove him from Privet Drive, and suddenly a whole bunch of wizards was standing matter-of-factly in the house as though this was a long-standing arrangement. He glanced at the people surrounding Lupin; they were still gazing avidly at him. He felt very conscious of the fact that he had not combed his hair for four days.

"I'm - you're really lucky the Dursleys are out . . ." he mumbled.

"Lucky, ha!" said the violet-haired woman. "It was me who lured them out of the way. Sent a letter by Muggle post telling them they'd been short-listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition. They're heading off to the prize-giving right now . . . or they think they are."

Harry had a fleeting vision of Uncle Vernon's face when he realized there was no All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition.

"We are leaving, aren't we?" he asked. "Soon?"

"Almost at once," said Lupin, "we're just waiting for the all-clear."

"Where are we going? The Burrow?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Not The Burrow, no," said Lupin, motioning Harry towards the kitchen; the little knot of wizards followed, all still eyeing Harry curiously. "Too risky. We've set up Headquarters somewhere un-detectable. It's taken a while . . ."

Mad-Eye Moody was now sitting at the kitchen table swigging from a hip flask, his magical eye spinning in all directions, taking in the Dursleys' many labor-saving appliances.

"This is Alastor Moody, Harry," Lupin continued, pointing towards Moody. "Yeah, I know," said Harry uncomfortably. It felt odd to be introduced to somebody he'd thought he'd known for a year.

"And this is Nymphadora – "

"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," said the young witch with a shudder, "it's Tonks."

"Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only," finished Lupin.

"So would you if your fool of a mother had called you Nymphadora"' muttered Tonks.

"And this is Kingsley Shacklebolt." He indicated the tall black wizard, who bowed. "Elphias Doge." The wheezy-voiced wizard nodded. "Dedalus Diggle – "

"We've met before," squeaked the excitable Diggle, dropping his violet-colored top hat.

"Emmeline Vance." A stately-looking witch in an emerald green shawl inclined her head. "Sturgis Podmore." A square-jawed wizard with thick straw-colored hair winked. "And Hestia Jones." A pink-cheeked, black-haired witch waved from next to the toaster.

Harry inclined his head awkwardly at each of them as they were introduced. He wished they would look at something other than him; it was as though he had suddenly been ushered on-stage. He also wondered why so many of their, were there.

"A surprising number of people volunteered to come and get you," said Lupin, as though he had read Harry's mind; the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Yeah, well, the more the better," said Moody darkly. "We're your guard, Potter."

"We're just waiting for the signal to tell us it's safe to set off," said Lupin, glancing out of the kitchen window. "We've got about fifteen minutes."

"Very clean, aren't they, these Muggles?" said the witch called Tonks, who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. "My dad's Muggle-born and he's a right old slob. I suppose it varies, just as it does with wizards?"

"Er - yeah," said Harry. "Look – " he turned back to Lupin, "what's going on, I haven't heard anything from anyone, what's Vol-?"

Several of the witches and wizards made odd hissing noises; Dedalus Diggle dropped his hat again and Moody growled, "Shut up!"

"What?" said Harry.

"We're not discussing anything here, it's too risky," said Moody, turning his normal eye on Harry. His magical eye remained focused on the ceiling. "Damn it," he added angrily, putting a hand up to the magical eye, "it keeps getting stuck - ever since that scum wore it."

And with a nasty squelching sound much like a plunger being pulled from a sink, he popped out his eye.

"Mad-Eye, you do know that's disgusting, don't you?" said Tonks conversationally.

"Get me a glass of water, would you, Harry," requested Moody.

Harry crossed to the dishwasher, took out a clean glass and filled it with water at the sink, still watched eagerly by the band of wizards. Their relentless staring was starting to annoy him.

"Cheers," said Moody, when Harry handed him the glass. He dropped the magical eyeball into the water and prodded it up and down; the eye whizzed around, staring at them all in turn. "I want three hundred and sixty degrees visibility on the return journey."

"How're we getting - wherever we're going?" Harry asked.

"Brooms," said Lupin. "Only way. You're too young to Apparate, they'll be watching the Floo Network and it's more than our life's worth to set up an unauthorized Portkey."

"Remus says you're a good flier," said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep voice.

"He's excellent," said Lupin, who was checking his watch. "Anyway, you'd better go and get packed, Harry, we want to be ready to go when the signal comes."

"I'll come and help you," said Tonks brightly.

She followed Harry back into the hall and up the stairs, looking around with much curiosity and interest.

"Funny place," she said. "It's a bit too clean, d'you know what I mean? Bit unnatural. Oh, this is better," she added, as they entered Harry's bedroom and he turned on the light.

His room was certainly much messier than the rest of the house. Confined to it for four days in a very bad mood, Harry had not bothered tidying up after himself. Most of the books he owned were strewn over the floor where he'd tried to distract himself with each in turn and thrown it aside; Hedwig's cage needed cleaning out and was starting to smell; and his trunk lay open, revealing a jumbled mixture of Muggle clothes and wizards' robes that had spilled on to the floor around it.

Harry started picking up books and throwing them hastily into his trunk. Tonks paused at his open wardrobe to look critically at her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the door.

"You know, I don't think violets really my color," she said pensively, tugging at a lock of spiky hair. "D'you think it makes me look a bit peaky?"

"Er – " said Harry, looking up at her over the top of Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland.

"Yeah, it does," said Tonks decisively. She screwed up her eyes in a strained expression as though she was struggling to remember something. A second later, her hair had turned bubble-gum pink.

"How did you do that?" said Harry, gaping at her as she opened her eyes again.

"I'm a Metamorphmagus," she said, looking back at her reflection and turning her head so that she could see her hair from all directions. "It means I can change my appearance at will," she added, spotting Harry's puzzled expression in the mirror behind her. "I was born one. I got top marks in Concealment and Disguise during Auror training without any study at all, it was great."

"You're an Auror?" said Harry, impressed. Being a Dark-wizard-catcher was the only career he'd ever considered after Hogwarts.

"Yeah," said Tonks, looking proud. "Kingsley is as well, he's a bit higher up than me, though. I only qualified a year ago. Nearly failed on Stealth and Tracking. I'm dead clumsy, did you hear me break that plate when we arrived downstairs?"

"Can you learn how to be a Metamorphmagus?" Harry asked her, straightening up, completely forgetting about packing.

Tonks chuckled. "Bet you wouldn't mind hiding that scar sometimes, eh?" Her eyes found the lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead.

"No, I wouldn't mind," Harry mumbled, turning away. He did not like people staring at his scar.

"Well, you'll have to learn the hard way, I'm afraid," said Tonks. "Metamorphmagi are really rare, they're born, not made. Most wizards read to use a wand, or potions, to change their appearance. But we've got to get going, Harry, we're supposed to be packing," she added guiltily, looking around at all the mess on the floor.

"Oh - yeah," said Harry, grabbing a few more books.

"Don't be stupid, it'll be much quicker if I - pack!" cried Tonks, waving her wand in a long, sweeping movement over the floor. Books, clothes, telescope and scales all soared into the air and flew pell-mell into the trunk.

"It's not very neat," said Tonks, walking over to the trunk and looking down at the jumble inside. "My mum's got this knack of getting stuff to fit itself in neatly - she even gets the socks to fold themselves - but I've never mastered how she does it - it's a kind of flick – " She flicked her wand hopefully.

One of Harry's socks gave a feeble sort of wiggle and flopped back on top of the mess in the trunk.

"Ah, well," said Tonks, slamming the trunk's lid shut, "at least it's all in. That could do with a bit of cleaning, too." She pointed her wand at Hedwig's cage. "Scourgify." A few feathers and droppings vanished. "Well, that's a bit better - I've never quite got the hang of these householdy sort of spells. Right - got everything? Cauldron? Broom? Wow! - A Firebolt?"

Her eyes widened as they fell on the broomstick in Harry's right hand. It was his pride and joy, a gift from Sirius, an international-standard broomstick.

"And I'm still riding a Comet Two Sixty," said Tonks enviously. "Ah well . . . wand still in your jeans? Both buttocks still on? OK, let's go. Locomotor trunk."

Harry's trunk rose a few inches into the air. Holding her wand like a conductors baton, Tonks made the trunk hover across the room and out of the door ahead of them, Hedwig's cage in her left hand. Harry followed her down the stairs carrying his broomstick.

Back in the kitchen Moody had replaced his eye, which was spinning so fast after its cleaning it made Harry feel sick to look at it. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Sturgis Podmore were examining the microwave and Hestia Jones was laughing at a potato peeler she had come across while rummaging in the drawers. Lupin was sealing a letter addressed to the Dursleys.

"Excellent," said Lupin, looking up as Tonks and Harry entered. "We've got about a minute, I think. We should probably get out into the garden so we're ready. Harry, I've left a letter telling your aunt and uncle not to worry – "

"They won't," said Harry.

" - that you're safe – "

"That'll just depress them."

" - and you'll see them next summer."

"Do I have to?"

Lupin smiled but made no answer.

"Come here, boy," said Moody gruffly, beckoning Harry towards him with his wand. "I need to Disillusion you."

"You need to what?" said Harry nervously.

"Disillusionment Charm," said Moody, raising his wand. "Lupin says you've got an Invisibility Cloak, but it won't stay on while we're flying; this'll disguise you better. Here you go – "

He rapped him hard on the top of the head and Harry felt a curious sensation as though Moody had just smashed an egg there; cold trickles seemed to be running down his body from the point the wand had struck.

"Nice one, Mad-Eye," said Tonks appreciatively, staring at Harry's midriff.

Harry looked down at his body, or rather, what had been his body, for it didn't look anything like his anymore. It was not invisible; it had simply taken on the exact color and texture of the kitchen unit behind him. He seemed to have become a human chameleon.

"Come on," said Moody, unlocking the back door with his wand.

They all stepped outside on to Uncle Vernon's beautifully kept lawn.

"Clear night," grunted Moody, his magical eye scanning the heavens. "Could've done with a bit more cloud cover. Right, you," he barked at Harry, "we're going to be flying in close formation. Tonks'll be right in front of you, keep close on her tail. Lupin'll be covering you from below. I'm going to be behind you. The rest'll be circling us. We don't break ranks for anything, got me? If one of us is killed – "

"Is that likely?" Harry asked apprehensively, but Moody ignored him.

" - the others keep flying, don't stop, don't break ranks. If they take out all of us and you survive, Harry, the rear guard are standing by to take over; keep flying east and they'll join you."

"Stop being so cheerful, Mad-Eye, he'll think we're not taking this seriously," said Tonks, as she strapped Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage into a harness hanging from her broom.

"I'm just telling the boy the plan," growled Moody. "Our job's to deliver him safely to Headquarters and if we die in the attempt – "

"No one's going to die," said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep, calming voice.

"Mount your brooms, that's the first signal!" said Lupin sharply, pointing into the sky.

Far, far above them, a shower of bright red sparks had flared among the stars. Harry recognized them at once as wand sparks. He swung his right leg over his Firebolt, gripped its handle tightly and felt it vibrating very slightly, as though it was as keen as he was to be up in the air once more.

"Second signal, let's go!" said Lupin loudly as more sparks, green this time, exploded high above them.

Harry kicked off hard from the ground. The cool night air rushed through his hair as the neat square gardens of Privet Drive fell away, shrinking rapidly into a patchwork of dark greens and blacks, and every thought of the Ministry hearing was swept from his mind as though the rush of air had blown it out of his head. He felt as though his heart was going to explode with pleasure; he was flying again, flying away from Privet Drive as he'd been fantasizing about all summer, he was going home . . . for a few glorious moments, all his problems seemed to recede to nothing, insignificant in the vast, starry sky.

"Hard left, hard left, there's a Muggle looking up!" shouted Moody from behind him. Tonks swerved and Harry followed her, watching his trunk swinging wildly beneath her broom. "We need more height . . . give it another quarter of a mile!"

Harry's eyes watered in the chill as they soared upwards: he could see nothing below now but tiny pinpricks of light that were car headlights and streetlamps. Two of those tiny lights might belong to Uncle Vernon's car . . . the Dursleys would be heading back to their empty house right now, full of rage about the nonexistent Lawn Competition . . . and Harry laughed aloud at the thought, though his voice was drowned by the flapping robes of the others, the creaking of the harness holding his trunk and the cage, and the whoosh of the wind in their ears as they sped through the air. He had not felt this alive in a month, or this happy.

"Bearing south!" shouted Mad-Eye. "Town ahead!"

They soared right to avoid passing directly over the glittering spider's web of lights below.

"Bear southeast and keep climbing, there's some low cloud ahead we can lose ourselves in!" called Moody.

"We're not going through clouds!" shouted Tonks angrily, "we'll get soaked, Mad-Eye!"

Harry was relieved to hear her say this; his hands were growing numb on the Firebolt's handle. He wished he had thought to put on a coat; he was starting to shiver.

They altered their course every now and then according to Mad-Eye's instructions. Harry's eyes were screwed up against the rush of icy wind that was starting to make his ears ache; he could remember being this cold on a broom only once before, during the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff in his third year, which had taken place in a storm. The guard around him was circling continuously like giant birds of prey. Harry lost track of time. He wondered how long they had been flying, it felt like an hour at least.

"Turning southwest!" yelled Moody "We want to avoid the motorway!"

Harry was now so chilled he thought longingly of the snug, dry interiors of the cars streaming along below, then, even more longingly, of travelling by Floo powder; it might be uncomfortable to spin around in fireplaces but it was at least warm in the flames . . . Kingsley Shacklebolt swooped around him, bald pate and earring gleaming slightly in the moonlight .., now Emmeline Vance was on his right, her wand out, her head turning left and right . . . then she, too, swooped over him, to be replaced by Sturgis Podmore . . .

"We ought to double back for a bit, just to make sure we're not being followed!" Moody shouted.

"ARE YOU MAD, MAD-EYE?" Tonks screamed from the front. "We're all frozen to our brooms! If we keep going off-course we're not going to get there until next week! Besides, we're nearly there now!"

"Time to start the descent!" came Lupin's voice. "Follow Tonks, Harry!"

Harry followed Tonks into a dive. They were heading for the largest collection of lights he had yet seen, a huge, sprawling crisscrossing mass, glittering in lines and grids, interspersed with patches of deepest black. Lower and lower they flew, until Harry could see individual headlights and streetlamps, chimneys and television aerials. He wanted to reach the ground very much, though he felt sure someone would have to unfreeze him from his broom.

"Here we go!" called Tonks, and a few seconds later she had landed.

Harry touched down right behind her and dismounted on a patch of unkempt grass in the middle of a small square Tonks was already unbuckling Harry's trunk. Shivering, Harry looked around. The grimy fronts of the surrounding houses were not welcoming; some of them had broken windows, glimmering dully in the light from the streetlamps, paint was peeling from many of the doors and heaps of rubbish lay outside several sets of front steps.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, but Lupin said quietly, "In a minute."

Moody was rummaging in his cloak, his gnarled hands clumsy with cold. "Got it," he muttered, raising what looked like a silver cigarette lighter into the air and clicking it.

The nearest streetlamp went out with a pop. He clicked the unlighter again; the next lamp went out; he kept clicking until every lamp in the square was extinguished and the only remaining light came from curtained windows and the sickle moon overhead.

"Borrowed it from Dumbledore," growled Moody, pocketing the Put-Outer. "That'll take care of any Muggles looking out of the window, see? Now come on, quick."

He took Harry by the arm and led him from the patch of grass, across the road and on to the pavement; Lupin and Tonks followed, carrying Harry's trunk between them, the rest of the guard, all with their wands out, flanking them. The muffled pounding of a stereo was coming from an upper window in the nearest house. A pungent smell of rotting rubbish came from the pile of bulging bin-bags just inside the broken gate.

"Here," Moody muttered, thrusting a piece of parchment towards Harry's Disillusioned hand and holding his lit wand close to it, so as to illuminate the writing. "Read quickly and memorize."

Harry looked down at the piece of paper. The narrow handwriting was vaguely familiar. It said:

_The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London._

"What's the Order of the - ?" Harry began.

"Not here, boy!" snarled Moody. "Wait till we're inside!"

He pulled the piece of parchment out of Harry's hand and set fire to it with his wand-tip. As the message curled into flames and floated to the ground, Harry looked around at the houses again. They were standing outside number eleven; he looked to the left and saw number ten; to the right, however, was number thirteen.

"But where's - ?"

"Think about what you've just memorized," said Lupin quietly.

Harry thought, and no sooner had he reached the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, than a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Harry gaped at it. The stereo in number eleven thudded on. Apparently the Muggles inside hadn't felt anything.

"Come on, hurry," growled Moody, prodding Harry in the back.

Harry walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialized door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver doorknocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Lupin pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Harry heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter o' a chain. The door creaked open.

"Get in quick, Harry," Lupin whispered, "but don't go far inside and don't touch anything."

"Harry stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. He could smell damp, dust and a sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others filing in behind him, Lupin and Tonks carrying his trunk and Hedwig's cage. Moody was standing on the top step releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the streetlamps; they flew back to their bulbs and the square glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door, so that the darkness in the hall became complete.

"Here – " He rapped Harry hard over the head with his wand; Harry felt as though something hot was trickling down his back this time and knew that the Disillusionment Charm must have lifted.

"Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here," Moody whispered.

The others' hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person. He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Harry heard something scuttling behind the skirting board. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents.

There were hurried footsteps and Ron's mother, Mrs. Weasley, emerged from a door at the far end of the hall. She was beaming in welcome as she hurried towards them, though Harry noticed that she was rather thinner and paler than she had been last time he had seen her.

"Oh, Harry, it's lovely to see you!" she whispered, pulling him into a rib-cracking hug before holding him at arm's length and examining him critically. "You're looking peaky; you need feeding up, but you'll have to wait a bit for dinner, I'm afraid."

She turned to the gang of wizards behind him and whispered urgently, "He's just arrived, the meetings started."

The wizards behind Harry all made noises of interest and excitement and began filing past him towards the door through which Mrs. Weasley had just come. Harry made to follow Lupin, but Mrs. Weasley held him back.

"No, Harry, the meeting's only for members of the Order. Ron and Hermione are upstairs, you can wait with them until the meetings over, and then we'll have dinner. And keep your voice down in the hall," she added in an urgent whisper.

"Why?"

"I don't want anything to wake up."

"What d'you - ?"

"I'll explain later, I've got to hurry, I'm supposed to be at the meeting - I'll just show you where you're sleeping."

Pressing her finger to her lips, she led him on tiptoe past a pair of long, moth-eaten curtains, behind which Harry supposed there must be another door, and after skirting a large umbrella stand that looked as though it had been made from a severed troll's leg they started up the dark staircase, passing a row of shrunken heads mounted on plaques on the wall. A closer look showed Harry that the heads belonged to house-elves. All of them had the same rather snout-like nose.

Harry's bewilderment deepened with every step he took. What on earth were they doing in a house that looked as though it belonged to the Darkest of wizards?

"Mrs. Weasley, why -?"

"Ron and Hermione will explain everything, dear, I've really got to dash," Mrs. Weasley whispered distractedly. "There – " they had reached the second landing, " - you're the door on the right. I'll call you when it's over."

And she hurried off downstairs again.

XxX

Naruto Uzumaki and Shikamaru Nara weren't sure what to think of the woman they followed. Well Naruto wasn't sure what to think, he doubted Shikamaru cared about anything this mission had to do with. It wasn't only this Minerva woman who was weird; it was the entire mission in general. This was the first time ever that any Village had accepted a mission outside of the hidden continent. There had of course been many pilgrimages to learn about their culture though the general idea was that the Wizards were very much terrified of any and every shinobi.

Naruto of course didn't blame them; their only form of defense was a stick that channeled their 'magic'. Without their stick they were all defenseless. It was a wonder they hadn't all died out yet.

The woman turned around to face them once they had reached a row of connected houses. "We're here." She said and began digging into her emerald green cloak pocket. Naruto didn't see how this was supposed to be the top secret headquarters to the resistance.

"Read this to yourselves." The woman said briskly, holding out a crumpled piece of paper.

Shikamaru reached over and took it from her before holding it in between the two of them. In loop hand writing it said:

_The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London._

Naruto wanted so bad to ask what all this meant but knew he wasn't supposed to speak about it until they had met Dumbledore. As Shikamaru handed the paper back to the stern woman he noticed that a house seemed to be squeezing itself in-between two other houses. He nudged Shikamaru with his elbow to get the cloud watcher to see this interesting phenomenon. It was only a few more seconds and if Naruto hadn't watched the magic he would never have guessed that there never had been a house there five minutes ago.

"This way please." The woman said leading the shinobi inside.

Without another word they followed Minerva inside to a very dreary looking home. It appeared as if no one had lived here for years if the thick dust was anything to go by. Minerva led them down a set of steps to what appeared to be a kitchen that was full to the brim with people. Naruto was pretty sure they were all older than him in Shikamaru.

At the long table in the middle of the room was Dumbledore with his long beard and even longer white hair. Minerva took her seat to his right hand on his left was a pale man younger than Dumbledore and McGonagall but older than Naruto. He looked very sour and had very greasy hair.

"Ah, Naruto Uzumaki and Shikamaru Nara, welcome to the Order of the Phoenix." Dumbledore said graciously.

Naruto took this as his queue to lower his hood to show his face to their client, out of the corner of the eye he saw that Shikamaru had done the same. "Dumbledore." He greeted with a quick nod of his head.

Already he could see the looks he and Shikamaru were receiving from the witches and wizards. He remembered that Tsunade had warned them how the Wizarding World didn't put much stock in abilities before age. Boy were they in for a rude awakening.

"The ninja sent you children." The greasy haired man said with a sneer, looking down his crooked nose at them.

"I assure you both Mr. Uzumaki and Mr. Nara are very capable." Dumbledore said but it fell on deaf ears.

"You can't be serious, Albus," A short woman with red hair said, looking horrified. "They can't be much older than Fred and George."

"Now Molly, please be patient." Dumbledore said though none of the others looked like they wanted to listen. "Their culture is far different from ours; I believe both Mr.'s Nara and Uzumaki graduated their Academy at the age of twelve when they became legal adults."

"Adults at the age of twelve? What are these ninja's playing at?" said a short balding man.

"We become adults when we graduate the Academy because the mission we are prepared to die for the missions we accept afterward." Shikamaru said in a lazy drawling voice. Naruto knew he hated being underestimated as much as any shinobi did. On the battlefield it was a tactical advantage, when your clients didn't have faith in you it was insulting.

"What!" The redheaded woman and a few others said, alarmed.

"I'll hear no more of this."Dumbledore said. "I have personally read their files and have the utmost faith in them." That silenced everyone. "Now let us begin."

Shikamaru nodded and pulled a scroll from his flack vest and unfurled it, on the inside was a small storage seal. He pumped the appropriate amount of chakra into it and a poof of smoke later there was a stack of file sitting on top of the open scroll. "Pass these down to Dumbledore." He told a man with graying hair and who looked far too old for his age.

"As you stated in your mission request you needed someone to watch over Hogwarts and in particular a boy named Harry Potter." Dumbledore nodded. "Naruto will be the one who fulfills this part of the contract."

"Just him?" Minerva said with a raised eyebrow. "The castle is too big; you'll need a bigger team."

"Trust me Naruto's enough." Shikamaru said dismissively and was about to continue before her was cut off again.

"And how do you expect to follow Potter and patrol not only the Castle but the grounds as well?" the greasy haired man asked, clearly not impressed with the big scary ninja.

Naruto looked over to Shikamaru who gave a sigh. "Go ahead." He said.

Naruto smirked as he locked eyes with the greasy haired man. The wizards couldn't see it but Naruto had put his hands into the hand seal and had pumped chakra into it. Four poofs of smoke later five Naruto's stood in front of at least twenty gaping ninja. "My numbers can go from one to a thousand faster than you can point your stick at me."

Shikamaru gave a nod and Naruto dispelled the clones. "Now as I was saying, while Naruto is at Hogwarts I will remain here at headquarters to help stop the war before it starts. The files I gave you are shinobi who might come to help with various smaller missions." Shikamaru said. "Is there anything I left out?" he asked.

Dumbledore pulled out his wand giving it a wave and another stack of files appeared before Shikamaru. "This is all the information we have on Harry, Voldemort and his followers." Dumbledore said. "Please feel free to go over them in your spare time, but I do believe that it's almost time for supper." He said looking over to the redheaded woman who nodded. "I'll come back tomorrow at noon to take the both of you to Hogwarts so you can get a feel for the place."

Both the Shinobi nodded and everyone else took that as their sign that the meeting was adjourned. According to Tsunade they would be staying at headquarters until Potter went off to school. They stepped to the side to allow, the somewhat skittish witches and wizards to pass by. Naruto was about to ask where they would be staying when the redhead, Molly bustled up to them.

"Are you hungry dears?" she asked.

"I'm starving." Naruto exaggerated.

"You're always starving." Shikamaru muttered.

"Well go ahead and give me your cloaks, I'll hang them up for you and then go take a seat at the table there." She said.

Shikamaru did as instructed revealing his standard jonin pants, shirt and flack vest. Naruto, however, could not wear something so boring when he took off his cloak he showed Molly his standard black shinobi pants with black ankle wrappings like the ANBU, his orange and black jacket he had gotten while training with Jiraiya and his altered red and sleeveless cloak that still had the black flames at the bottom, his giant scroll strapped to his back. (got the idea for this outfit when I saw a piece of fan art on photobucket.)

"My," Molly said. "You two certainly dress different." Her eyes lingering on Naruto.

Naruto smiled and gave a shrug, he couldn't help he didn't like to blend into the back ground like every other shinobi. Molly then walked past them and into the front part of the house.

A/N

I know I already have a Naruto/hp crossover but I just couldn't get this out of my head. Also don't expect all chapters to be this long. Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

"The meetings over, you can come down and have dinner now. Everyone's dying to see you, Harry. And who's left all those Dungbombs outside the kitchen door?" Mrs. Weasley asked from the door.

"Crookshanks," said Ginny unblushingly. "He loves playing with them."

"Oh," said Mrs. Weasley, "I thought it might have been Kreacher, he keeps doing odd things like that. Now don't forget to keep your voices down in the hall. Ginny, your hands are filthy, what have you been doing? Go and wash them before dinner, please."

Ginny grimaced at the others and followed her mother out of the room, leaving Harry alone with Ron and Hermione. Both of them were watching him apprehensively, as though they feared he would start shouting again now that everyone else had gone. The sight of them looking so nervous made him feel slightly ashamed.

"Look . . ." he muttered, but Ron shook his head, and Hermione said quietly, "We knew you'd be angry, Harry, we really don't blame you, but you've got to understand, we did try to persuade Dumbledore – "

"Yeah, I know," said Harry shortly.

He cast around for a topic that didn't involve his headmaster, because the very thought of Dumbledore made Harry's insides burn with anger again.

"Who's Kreacher?" he asked.

"He's the house-elf who lives here," said Ron. "Nutter. Never met one like him."

Hermione frowned at Ron. "He's not a nutter, Ron."

"His life's ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on plaque just like his mother," said Ron irritably. "Is that normal, Hermione?"

"Well - well, if he is a bit strange, it's not his fault."

Ron rolled his eyes at Harry. "Hermione still hasn't given up on S.P.E.W."

"It's not SPEW!" said Hermione heatedly. "It's the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. And it's not just me; Dumbledore says we should be kind to Kreacher too."

"Yeah, yeah," said Ron. "C'mon, I'm starving." He led the way out of the door and on to the landing, but the more they could descend the stairs - "Hold it!" Ron breathed, flinging out an arm to stop Harry and Hermione walking any further. "They're still in the hall; we might be able to hear something."

The three of them looked cautiously over the banisters. The gloomy hallway below was packed with witches and wizards, including all of Harry's guard. They were whispering excitedly together. In the very centre of the group Harry saw the dark, greasy-haired head and prominent nose of his least favorite teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Snape. Harry leant further over the banisters. He was very interested in what Snape was doing for the Order of the Phoenix . . .

A thin piece of flesh-colored string descended in front of Harry's eyes. Looking up, he saw Fred and George on the landing above, cautiously lowering the Extendable Ear towards the dark knot of people below. A moment later, however, they all began to move towards the front door and out of sight.

"Damnit," Harry heard Fred whisper, as he hoisted the Extendable Ear back up again.

They heard the front door open, then close.

"Snape never eats here," Ron told Harry quietly. "Thank God. C'mon."

"And don't forget to keep your voice down in the hall, Harry," Hermione whispered.

As they passed the row of house-elf heads on the wall, they saw Lupin, Mrs. Weasley and Tonks at the front door, magically sealing its many locks and bolts behind those who had just left.

"We're eating down in the kitchen," Mrs. Weasley whispered, meeting them at the bottom of the stairs. "Harry, dear, if you'll just tiptoe across the hall it's through this door here – "

CRASH.

"Tonks!" cried Mrs. Weasley in exasperation, turning to look behind her.

"I'm sorry!" wailed Tonks, who was lying flat on the floor. "It's that stupid umbrella stand, that's the second time I've tripped over – "

But the rest of her words were drowned by a horrible, ear-splitting, blood-curdling screech.

The moth-eaten velvet curtains Harry had passed earlier had flown apart, but there was no door behind them. For a split second, Harry thought he was looking through a window, a window behind which an old woman in a black cap was screaming and screaming as though she were being tortured - then he realized it was simply a life-size portrait, but the most realistic, and the most unpleasant, he had ever seen in his life.

The old woman was drooling, her eyes were rolling, the yellowing skin of her face stretched taut as she screamed; and all along the hall behind them, the other portraits awoke and began to yell, too, so that Harry actually screwed up his eyes at the noise and clapped his hands over his ears.

Lupin and Mrs. Weasley darted forward and tried to tug the curtains shut over the old woman, but they would not close and she screeched louder than ever, brandishing clawed hands as though trying to tear at their faces.

"Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, be gone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers – "

Tonks apologized over and over again, dragging the huge, heavy troll's leg back off the floor; Mrs. Weasley abandoned the attempt to close the curtains and hurried up and down the hall, stunning all the other portraits with her wand; and a man with long black hair came charging out of a door facing Harry.

"Shut up, you horrible old hag, shut UP!" he roared, seizing the curtain Mrs. Weasley had abandoned.

The old woman's face blanched.

"Yoooou!" she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. "Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!"

"I said - shut - UP!" roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.

The old woman's screeches died and an echoing silence fell. Panting slightly and sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes, Harry's godfather Sirius turned to face him.

"Hello, Harry," he said grimly, "I see you've met my mother."

"Your - ?"

"'My dear old mum, yeah," said Sirius. "We've been trying to get her down for a month but we think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Let's get downstairs, quick, before they all wake up again."

"But what's a portrait of your mother doing here?" Harry asked, bewildered, as they went through the door from the hall and led the way down a flight of narrow stone steps, the others just behind them.

"Hasn't anyone told you? This was my parents' house," said Sirius. "But I'm the last Black left, so it's mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for Headquarters - about the only useful thing I've been able to do."

Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius's voice sounded. He followed his godfather to the bottom of the steps and through a door leading into the basement kitchen.

It was scarcely less gloomy than the hall above, a cavernous room with rough stone walls. Most of the light was coming from a large fire at the far end of the room. A haze of pipe smoke hung in the air like battle fumes, through which loomed the menacing shapes of heavy iron pots and pans hanging from the dark ceiling. Many chairs had been crammed into the room for the meeting and a long wooden table stood in the middle of them, littered with rolls of parchment, goblets, empty wine bottles, and a heap of what appeared to be rags. Mr. Weasley and his eldest son Bill were talking quietly with their heads together at the end of the table.

Mrs. Weasley cleared her throat. Her husband, a thin, balding, red-haired man who wore horn-rimmed glasses, looked around and jumped to his feet.

"Harry!" Mr. Weasley said, hurrying forward to greet him, and shaking his hand vigorously. "Good to see you!"

Over his shoulder Harry saw Bill, who still wore his long hair in a ponytail, hastily rolling up the lengths of parchment left on the table.

"Journey all right, Harry?" Bill called, trying to gather up twelve scrolls at once. "Mad-Eye didn't make you come via Greenland, then?"

"He tried," said Tonks, striding over to help Bill and immediately toppling a candle on to the last piece of parchment. "Oh no - sorry – "

"Here, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, sounding exasperated, and she repaired the parchment with a wave of her wand. In the flash of light caused by Mrs. Weasley's charm Harry caught a glimpse of what looked like the plan of a building.

Mrs. Weasley had seen him looking. She snatched the plan off the table and stuffed it into Bill's already over laden arms.

"This sort of thing ought to be cleared away promptly at the end of meetings," she snapped, before sweeping off towards an ancient dresser from which she started unloading dinner plates.

Bill took out his wand, muttered, "Evanesce!" and the scrolls vanished.

"Sit down, Harry" said Sirius. "You've met Mundungus, haven't you?" The thing Harry had taken to be a pile of rags gave a prolonged, grunting snore, then jerked awake.

"Some'n say m'name?" Mundungus mumbled sleepily. "I agree with Sirius . . ." He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused.

Ginny giggled.

"The meeting's over, Dung," said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. "Harry's arrived."

"Eh?" said Mundungus, peering bale fully at Harry through his matted ginger hair. "Blimey, so 'e 'as. Yeah . . . you all right, 'Airy?"

"Yeah," said Harry.

Mundungus fumbled nervously in his pockets, still staring at Harry, and pulled out a grimy black pipe. He stuck it in his mouth, ignited the end of it with his wand and took a deep pull on it. Great billowing clouds of greenish smoke obscured him within seconds.

"Owe you a 'pology," grunted a voice from the middle of the smelly cloud.

"For the last time, Mundungus," called Mrs. Weasley, "will you please not smoke that thing in the kitchen, especially not when we're about to eat!"

"Ah," said Mundungus. "Right. Sorry, Molly."

The cloud of smoke vanished as Mundungus stowed his pipe back in his pocket, but an acrid smell of burning socks lingered.

"And if you want dinner before midnight I'll need a hand," Mrs. Weasley said to the room at large. "No, you can stay where you are, Harry dear, you've had a long journey."

"What can I do, Molly?" said Tonks enthusiastically, bounding forwards.

Mrs. Weasley hesitated, looking apprehensive. "Er - no, it's all right, Tonks, you have a rest too, you've done enough today."

"No, no, I want to help!" said Tonks brightly, knocking over a chair as she hurried towards the dresser, from which Ginny was collecting cutlery.

Soon, a series of heavy knives were chopping meat and vegetables of their own accord, supervised by Mr. Weasley, while Mrs. Weasley stirred a cauldron dangling over the fire and the others took out plates, more goblets and food from the pantry. Harry was left at the table with Sirius and Mundungus, who was still blinking at him mournfully.

It was then for the first time that Harry noticed two oddly dressed people sitting at the far end of the table. In fact everything about them was odd. The first one was slouched down in his seat, his hair pulled up into a short ponytail. He seemed to be wearing a long black sleeved shirt that had a metal plate with an odd swirl on it sown into the sleeve on his bicep. He also seemed to be wearing a thick green vest that had pockets in it.

He man next to him was if possible even stranger, even by Wizarding standards. He was watching everything, fascinated, and wearing a sleeveless red cloak with a black and orange jacket pushed up to his elbows, underneath. But what was truly curious was his face. He had sunshine yellow spiky blonde hair that just seemed to grow up and out, he wore a headband with the same metal plate on it to keep his locks out of his face. He had bright blue eyes and what appeared to be three scars on each cheek giving of the impression he had whiskers.

"Seen old Figgy since?" he asked, pulling Harry out of his thoughts.

"No," said Harry, "I haven't seen anyone."

"See, I wouldn't 'ave left," said Mundungus, leaning forward, a pleading note in his voice, "but I 'ad a business opportunity – "

Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks, Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry's legs, purring, then jumped on to Sirius's lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absent-mindedly behind the ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry.

"Had a good summer so far?"

"No, it's been lousy," said Harry.

For the first time, something like a grin flitted across Sirius's free. "Don't know what you're complaining about, myself."

"What?" said Harry incredulously.

"Personally, I'd have welcomed a Dementor attack. A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely. You think you've had it bad, at least you've been able to get out and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights . . . I've been stuck inside for a month."

"How come?" asked Harry, frowning.

"Because the Ministry of Magic's still after me, and Voldemort will know all about me being an Animagus by now, Wormtail will have told him, so my big disguise is useless. There's not much I can do for the Order of the Phoenix . . . or so Dumbledore feels."

There was something about the slightly flattened tone of voice in which Sirius uttered Dumbledore's name that told Harry that Sirius, too, was not very happy with the Headmaster. Harry felt a sudden upsurge of affection for his godfather.

"At least you've known what's been going on," he said bracingly.

"Oh yeah," said Sirius sarcastically. "Listening to Snape's reports, having to take all his snide hints that he's out there risking his life while I'm sat on my backside here having a nice comfortable time . . . asking me how the cleaning's going – "

"What cleaning?" asked Harry.

"Trying to make this place fit for human habitation," said Sirius, waving a hand around the dismal kitchen. "No one's lived here for ten years, not since my dear mother died, unless you count her old house-elf, and he's gone round the twist - hasn't cleaned anything in ages."

"Sirius," said Mundungus, who did not appear to have paid any attention to the conversation, but had been closely examining an empty goblet. "This solid silver, mate?"

"Yes," said Sirius, surveying it with distaste. "Finest fifteenth-century goblin-wrought silver, embossed with the Black family crest."

"That'd come off, though," muttered Mundungus, polishing it with his cuff.

"Fred - George - NO, JUST CARRY THEM!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked.

Harry, Sirius and Mundungus looked round and, within a split second, they had dived away from the table. Fred and George had bewitched a large cauldron of stew, an iron flagon of Butterbeer and a heavy wooden breadboard, complete with knife, to hurtle through the air towards them. The stew skidded the length of the table and came to a halt just before the end, leaving a long black burn on the wooden surface; the flagon of Butterbeer fell with a crash, spilling its contents everywhere; the bread knife slipped off the board and landed, point down and quivering ominously, exactly where Sirius's right hand had been seconds before.

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!" screamed Mrs. Weasley. "THERE WAS NO NEED - I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS - JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"

"We were just trying to save a bit of time!" said Fred, hurrying forward to wrench the bread knife out of the table. "Sorry, Sirius, mate - didn't mean to – "

Harry and Sirius were both laughing; Mundungus, who had toppled backwards off his chair, was swearing as he got to his feet; Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from where his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. The man with the ponytail appeared to be asleep while the blonde was smiling, watching the whole scene.

"Boys," Mr. Weasley said, lifting the stew back into the middle of the table, "your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility now you've come of age – "

"None of your brothers caused this sort of trouble!" Mrs. Weasley raged at the twins as she slammed a fresh flagon of Butterbeer on lo the table, and spilling almost as much again. "Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't charm everything he met! Percy – "

She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression was suddenly wooden.

"Let's eat," said Bill quickly.

"It looks wonderful, Molly," said Lupin, ladling stew on to a plate for her and handing it across the table.

For a few minutes there was silence but for the chink of plates and cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settled down to their food. Then Mrs. Weasley turned to the strange men.

"How are you enjoying England so far, dears?" she asked them.

The guy with the ponytail grunted before continuing with his soup, the blonde however, finished inhaling his before answering. "It's cold and foggy all the time, and you never see the sun. It's very different from Konoha."

"Konoha? Is that were you're from? Where is it located?" Hermione piped up.

"Near Japan." The other one answered.

This answer didn't seem to satisfy Hermione in the least. "I thought the Japanese and Chinese Ministries strictly forbid any witch or wizard from entering Europe after the War of 1712?"

Harry noticed all the adults in the room exchange nervous glances. "That's because they aren't wizards." Sirius said, breaking the tense silence.

"Sirius!" Mrs. Weasley cried, horrified. "They aren't in the order! You know it's time for bed I think." She said and began to gather up all the dishes.

"Not just yet, Molly," said Sirius, pushing away his empty plate and turning to look at Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."

The atmosphere in the room changed with the rapidity Harry associated with the arrival of Dementors. Where seconds before it had been sleepily relaxed, it was now alert, even tense. A frisson had gone around the table at the mention of Voldemort's name. Lupin, who had been about to take a sip of wine, lowered his goblet slowly, looking wary. The two who weren't wizards looked mildly interested but nothing more.

"I did!" said Harry indignantly. "I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order, so – "

"And they're quite right," said Mrs. Weasley. "You're too young." She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched on its arms, every trace of drowsiness gone.

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?" asked Sirius. "Harry's been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He's got the right to know what's been happen-"

"Hang on!" interrupted George loudly.

"How come Harry gets his questions answered?" said Fred angrily.

"We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us a single stinking thing!" said George.

" 'You're too young, you're not in the Order,' " said Fred, in a high-pitched voice that sounded uncannily like his mother's. "Harry's not even of age!"

"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing," Said Sirius calmly, "that's your parents' decision. Harry, on the other hand – "

"It's not down to you to decide what's good for Harry!" said Mrs. Weasley sharply. The expression on her normally kind face looked dangerous. "You haven't forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?"

"Which bit?" Sirius asked politely, but with the air of a man readying himself for a fight.

"The bit about not telling Harry more than he needs to know," said Mrs. Weasley, placing a heavy emphasis on the last three words.

Ron, Hermione, Fred and Georges heads swiveled from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though they were following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned Butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin's eyes were fixed on Sirius.

"I don't intend to tell him more than he needs to know, Molly," said Sirius. "But as he was the one who saw Voldemort come back" (again, there was a collective shudder around the table at the name) "he has more right than most to – "

"He's not a member of the Order of the Phoenix!" said Mrs. Weasley. "He's only fifteen and – "

"And he's dealt with as much as most in the Order," said Sirius, "and more than some."

"No one's denying what he's done!" said Mrs. Weasley, her voice rising, her fists trembling on the arms of her chair. "But he's still – "

"He's not a child!" said Sirius impatiently.

"He's not an adult either!" said Mrs. Weasley, the color rising in her cheeks. "He's not James, Sirius!"

"I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," said Sirius coldly.

"I'm not sure you are!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!"

"What's wrong with that?" said Harry.

"What's wrong, Harry is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!" said Mrs. Weasley, her eyes still boring into Sirius. "You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!"

"Meaning I'm an irresponsible godfather?" demanded Sirius, his voice rising.

"Meaning you have been known to act rashly, Sirius, which is why Dumbledore keeps reminding you to stay at home and – "

"We'll leave my instructions from Dumbledore out of this, if you please!" said Sirius loudly.

"Arthur!" said Mrs. Weasley rounding on her husband. "Arthur, back me up!"

Mr. Weasley did not speak at once. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on his robes, not looking at his wife. Only when he had replaced them carefully on his nose did he reply. "Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled in, to a certain extent, now that he is staying at Headquarters."

"Yes, but there's a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!"

"Personally," said Lupin quietly, looking away from Sirius at last, as Mrs. Weasley turned quickly to him, hopeful that finally she was about to get an ally, "I think it better that Harry gets the facts - 'not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture - from us, rather than a garbled version from . . . others." His expression was mild, but Harry felt sure Lupin, at least, knew that some Extendable Ears had survived Mrs. Weasley's purge.

"Well," said Mrs. Weasley, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, "well . . . I can see I' going to be overruled. I'll just say this: Dumbledore must have had his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much, and speaking as someone who has Harry's best interests at heart –"

"He's not your son," said Sirius quietly.

"He's as good as," said Mrs. Weasley fiercely. "Who else has he got?"

"He's got me!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Weasley, her lip curling, "the thing is, it's been rather difficult for you to look after him while you've been locked up in Azkaban, hasn't it?"

Sirius started to rise from his chair.

"Molly, you're not the only person at this table who cares about Harry," said Lupin sharply. "Sirius, sit down."

Mrs. Weasley's lower lip was trembling. Sirius sank slowly back into his chair, his face white.

"I think Harry ought to be allowed a say in this," Lupin continued, "he's old enough to decide for himself."

"I want to know what's been going on," Harry said at once.

He did not look at Mrs. Weasley. He had been touched by what she had said about his being as good as a son, but he was also impatient with her mollycoddling. Sirius was right, he was not a child.

"Very well," said Mrs. Weasley, her voice cracking. "Ginny - Ron - Hermione - Fred - George - I want, you out of this kitchen, now."

There was instant uproar.

"We're of age!" Fred and George bellowed together.

"'If Harry's allowed, why can't I?" shouted Ron.

"Mum, I want to hear!" wailed Ginny

"NO!" shouted Mrs. Weasley, standing up, her eyes over bright. "I absolutely forbid – "

"Molly you can't stop Fred and George," said Mr. Weasley wearily. "They are of age."

"They're still at school."

"But they're legally adults now," said Mr. Weasley, in the same tired voice.

Mrs. Weasley was now scarlet in the face.

"I - oh, all right then, Fred and George can stay, but Ron – "

"Harry'll tell me and Hermione everything you say anyway!" said Ron hotly. "Won't - won't you?" he added uncertainly, meeting Harry's eyes.

For a split second, Harry considered telling Ron that he wouldn't tell him a single word, that he could try a taste of being kept in the dark and see how he liked it. But the nasty impulse vanished as they looked at each other.

"Course I will," Harry said.

Ron and Hermione beamed.

"Fine!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Fine! Ginny - BED!"

Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Blacks ear-splitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait: to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke.

"OK, Harry . . . what do you want to know?"

Harry took a deep breath and asked the question that had obsessed him for the last month, completely forgetting about the non-wizards at the other end of the table who seemed to have blended in with the background.

"Where's Voldemort?" he said, ignoring the renewed shudders and winces at the name. "What's he doing? I've been trying to watch the Muggle news, and there hasn't been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything."

"That's because there haven't been any funny deaths yet," said Sirius, "not as far as we know, anyway . . . and we know quite a lot."

"More than he thinks we do, anyway," said Lupin.

"How come he's stopped killing people?" Harry asked. He knew Voldemort had murdered more than once in the last year alone.

"Because he doesn't want to draw attention to himself," said Sirius. "It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn't come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. He messed it up."

"Or rather, you messed it up for him," said Lupin, with a satisfied smile.

"How?"Harry asked, perplexed.

"You weren't supposed to survive!" said Sirius. "Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know he'd come back. But you survived to bear witness."

"And the very last person he wanted alerted to his return the moment he got back was Dumbledore," said Lupin. "And you made sure Dumbledore knew at once."

"How has that helped?" Harry asked.

"Are you kidding?" said Bill incredulously. "Dumbledore was the only one You-Know-Who was ever scared of!"

"Thanks to you, Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Voldemort returned," said Sirius.

"So, what's the Order been doing?" said Harry, looking around at them all.

"Working as hard as we can to make sure Voldemort can't carry out his plans," said Sirius.

"How d'you know what his plans are?" Harry asked quickly.

"Dumbledore's got a shrewd idea," said Lupin, "and Dumbledore's shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate."

"So what does Dumbledore reckon he's planning?"

"Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again," said Sirius. "In the old days he had huge numbers at his command: witches and wizards he'd bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well, they'll be just one of the groups he's after. He's certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters."

"So you're trying to stop him getting more followers?"

"We're doing our best," said Lupin.

"How?"

"Well, the main thing is to try and convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard," said Bill. "It's proving tricky, though."

"Why?"

"Because of the Ministry's attitude," said Tonks. "You saw Cornelius Fudge after You-Know-Who came back, Harry. Well, he hasn't shifted his position at all. He's absolutely refusing to believe it's happened."

"But why?" said Harry desperately. "Why's he being so stupid? If Dumbledore – "

"Ah, well, you've put your finger on the problem," said Mr. Weasley with a wry smile. "Dumbledore."

"Fudge is frightened of him, you see," said Tonks sadly.

"Frightened of Dumbledore?" said Harry incredulously.

"Frightened of what he's up to," said Mr. Weasley. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore's plotting to overthrow him. He thinks Dumbledore wants to be Minister for Magic."

"But Dumbledore doesn't want – "

"Of course he doesn't," said Mr. Weasley. "He's never wanted the Minister's job, even though a lot of people wanted him to take it when Millicent Bagnold retired. Fudge came to power instead, but he's never quite forgotten how much popular support Dumbledore had, even though Dumbledore never applied for the job."

"Deep down, Fudge knows Dumbledore's much cleverer than he is, a much more powerful wizard, and in the early days of his Ministry he was forever asking Dumbledore for help and advice," said Lupin. "But it seems he's become fond of power, and much more confident. He loves being Minister for Magic and he's managed to convince himself that he's the clever one and Dumbledore's simply stirring up trouble for the sake of it."

"How can he think that?" said Harry angrily. "How can he think Dumbledore would just make it all up - that I'd make it all up?"

"Because accepting that Voldemort's back would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn't had to cope with for nearly fourteen years," said Sirius bitterly. "Fudge just can't bring himself to face it. It's so much more comfortable to convince himself Dumbledore's lying to destabilize him."

"You see the problem," said Lupin. "While the Ministry insists there is nothing to fear from Voldemort it's hard to convince people he's back, especially as they really don't want to believe it in the first place. What's more, the Ministry's leaning heavily on the Daily Prophet not to report any of what they're calling Dumbledore's rumor-mongering, so most of the wizarding community are completely unaware anything's happened, and that makes them easy targets for the Death Eaters if they're using the Imperius Curse."

"But you're telling people, aren't you?" said Harry, looking around at Mr. Weasley, Sirius, Bill, Mundungus, Lupin and Tonks. "You're letting people know he's back?"

They all smiled humorlessly.

"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad mass-murderer and the Ministry's put a ten thousand Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?" said Sirius restlessly.

"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest with most of the community," said Lupin. "It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf."

"Tonks and Arthur would lose their jobs at the Ministry if they started shooting their mouths off," said Sirius, "and it's very important for us to have spies inside the Ministry, because you can bet Voldemort will have them."

"We've managed to convince a couple of people, though," said Mr. Weasley. "Tonks here, for one - she's too young to have been in the Order of the Phoenix last time, and having Aurors on our side is a huge advantage - Kingsley Shacklebolt's been a real asset, too; he's in charge of the hunt for Sirius, so he's been feeding the Ministry information that Sirius is in Tibet."

"But if none of you are putting the news out that Voldemort's back – " Harry began.

"Who said none of us are putting the news out?" said Sirius. "Why d'you think Dumbledore's in such trouble?"

"What d'you mean?" Harry asked.

"They're trying to discredit him," said Lupin. "Didn't you see the Daily Prophet last week? They reported that he'd been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards because he's getting old and losing his grip, but it's not true; he was voted out by Ministry wizards after he made a speech announcing Voldemort's return. They've demoted him from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot - that's the Wizard High Court - and they're talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class, too."

"But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog Cards," said Bill, grinning.

"It's no laughing matter," said Mr. Weasley sharply. "If he carries on defying the Ministry like this he could end up in Azkaban, and the last thing we want is to have Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore's out there and wise to what he's up to he's going to go cautiously. If Dumbledore's out of the way - well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field."

"But if Voldemort's trying to recruit more Death Eaters it's bound to get out that he's come back, isn't it?" asked Harry desperately.

"Voldemort doesn't march up to people's houses and bang on their front doors, Harry," said Sirius. "He tricks, jinxes and blackmails them. He's well-practiced at operating in secret. In any case, gathering followers is only one thing he's interested in. He's got other plans too, plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed, and he's concentrating on those for the moment."

"What's he after apart from followers?" Harry asked swiftly. He thought he saw Sirius and Lupin exchange the most fleeting of looks before Sirius answered.

"Stuff he can only get by stealth."

When Harry continued to look puzzled, Sirius said, "Like a weapon. Something he didn't have last time."

"When he was powerful before?"

"Yes."

"Like what kind of weapon?" said Harry. "Something worse than the Avada Kedavra - ?"

"That's enough!" Mrs. Weasley spoke from the shadows beside the door. Harry hadn't noticed her return from taking Ginny upstairs. Her arms were crossed and she looked furious.

"I want you in bed, now. All of you," she added, looking around at Fred, George, Ron and Hermione.

"You can't boss us – " Fred began.

"Watch me," snarled Mrs. Weasley. She was trembling slightly as she looked at Sirius. "You've given Harry plenty of information. Anymore and you might just as well induct him into the Order straightaway."

"Why not?" said Harry quickly. "I'll join, I want to join, I want to fight."

"No." It was not Mrs. Weasley who spoke this time, but Lupin. "The Order is comprised only of overage wizards," he said. "Wizards who have left school," he added, as Fred and George opened their mouths. "There are dangers involved of which you can have no idea, any of you . . . I think Molly's right, Sirius. We've said enough."

"Wait!" Harry said, nowhere near done asking questions. "What about them?" He asked, pointing at the two people down the table. "They can't be that much older than us and you said they aren't even wizards, why are they in the Order?"

Sirius turned to look at Mrs. Weasley. "He'll find out eventually." She said thought her face was still red; clearly she was not happy about any of this.

"Shikamaru Nara and Naruto Uzumaki are Ninja from the Hidden Ninja Continent." Sirius said. "Dumbledore hired them to help with the Order." He said.

"Ninja's?" they didn't look very impressive. "But they don't have magic? They won't stand a chance against Voldemort and his Death Eaters!"

"Actually, Harry," Lupin said. "Ninja may not have magic but most of them are a lot stronger than most wizards."

"Last time You-Know-Who wouldn't even try to get them to his side." Bill added.

"Still," Harry said, not giving up. "There's only two of them, what are they going to be doing?"

"Well, Naruto's going to follow you to Hogwarts to watch over the school while Shikamaru stays here at Headquarters to help stop the war before it starts." Sirius said, almost carefully.

"So Dumbledore's hired a babysitter for me, has he?" Harry asked hotly. "I can take care of myself."

"That's not it at all." Lupin jumped in. "What you need to understand Harry is that You-Know-Who is out to get you and if he can take over the school in the process then that's all the better."

"But that still doesn't explain why there are only two of them!" Harry was not getting the answers he needed. "How is he supposed to cover the whole school and me? It's impossible."

"That's enough." Came a drawling voice from the opposite end of the table. Harry realized that it was the 'ninja' with the ponytail. "If you tell him anymore then he becomes a liability if he's captured."

"I would never-" Harry started but the man, Nara or Uzumaki interrupted him.

"It doesn't matter. If someone wants to know something, whether it is your government or you enemy, they'll do whatever it takes to get the answers they seek." He explained, seemingly annoyed that he had to in the first place. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but your schools don't exactly train you how to get through torture and interrogation without giving anything up, do they?"

Harry gave his most heated glare to the ninja, who seemed unaffected, but didn't say anything.

"Now off to bed, all of you!" Mrs. Weasley said. She beckoned imperiously to her sons and Hermione. One by one they stood up and Harry, recognizing defeat, followed suit. He was going to make it as difficult to follow him as he could for the ninja.

A/N

Please don't expect chapters to come out this fast or be this long, I swear it's a fluke. Show some love and leave some reviews please!


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto watched as all the children left upstairs, no doubt to discuss the infuriating foreigners. Most of the adults in the room didn't look happy but he was pleased to see that it wasn't because of him or Shikamaru.

"So what did you think of Harry and his friends?" the one called Lupin asked. Naruto couldn't place his finger on it but there was something strange about him.

"They're too nosey for their own good, they're gonna end up either getting themselves killed or someone else." Naruto said with a frown.

"They mean well." Lupin said, Naruto noticed that he didn't deny anything he had just said.

"Back to the mission," Shikamaru said. "We weren't informed of the political strife you have with your government, if this is going to work I'm going to need to know all your laws and some history on your Ministry."

"I'll have those for you by tomorrow." The redheaded man who had been identified as Aurther Weasley said. From what Naruto had heard he had and Molly were the parents to all the other redheads and he actually worked in this Ministry.

"Thank you. Now like I said before, you are going to have to be very careful about what information you leak out to Potter and his friends." Shikamaru held up his hand to stop Sirius, Potter's Godfather, from speaking. "I'm sure he is frustrated with the situation ad he does deserve to know a few things." He agreed.

"But the truth is you are at war and information is everything during times like this. He is untrained, both in your magic and mentally to be able to deal with the information you've given him." Shikamaru said.

The whole room was silent. "Look you guys haven't been at war for years, we just got out of the Fourth Great Shinobi War not even a year ago. If you want to prevent this war than you need to listen to Shikamaru here, he's a lot smarter than he looks." Naruto said with a reassuring smile.

"Thanks Naruto." Shikamaru said sarcastically, with a roll of his eyes. "Speaking of information, you need an upgrade on your security, especially during your meetings. Naruto d you have any barrier seals on you?"

Naruto was silent as he went through a mental inventory of all the seals he had on hand. "No but I can make them." He said.

"What are seals?" Bill one of the older Weasley sons asked.

"Not many people can do fuinjutsu, it's really complicated." Naruto explained and began rummaging in his weapons pouch for an example. "This is an exploding tag," he told them and passed it down to Bill who was the closest. "It's a seal, that when activated with explode." Bill passed it down to the others around the table. "Those are pretty common, you can also create barrier seals that you can use to either keep people out or seal something inside of someone."

It was Lupin who spoke next. "What do you mean seal something inside of someone?" He asked, fingering the exploding tag.

"It can be anything from weapons, to chakra (Our form of magic), or even a demon spirit." He explained.

"A demon spirit?" Tonks asked with raised eyebrows.

"In our world we call those who contain demons jinchuriki, which translates to human sacrifice. The reason we have to seal these demons away is because they are large concentrations of malevolent chakra that would destroy everything in sight otherwise. Depending on the construction of the seal determines how much of the demon leaks through to its host. It also depends on the will of the jinchuriki; you see any seal is only as strong as you make it."

There was silence in the room as they all digested this bit of information. Naruto never really liked to tell people he was a jinchuriki until they got to know him, but he could always spot someone in the same situation as him. And right now he knew that Lupin had something inside of him that didn't belong there.

"These demons you're talking about, would they be the nine-tailed beast?" Bill asked.

Naruto was momentarily surprised that he knew of the tailed beasts before he realized that the wizards had information about their world just like they did. "Yep," he said.

"Would you be able to seal other things inside of people?" Lupin asked.

"Like what exactly?" he asked getting interested.

"A werewolf?" he said, causing everyone at the table to instantly grow nervous.

Naruto's brows furred in concentration. "I don't know, I'd have to look into it. It really depends on if it's an actual spirit inside of you or if it's a medical issue." He said.

Lupin nodded but didn't say anymore. The rest of the night was spent talking about the differences between the two worlds.

XxX

"Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more Doxys than she thought and she's found a nest of dead Puffskeins under the sofa." George said the next morning.

Half an hour later Harry and Ron, who had dressed and breakfasted quickly, entered the drawing room, a long, high-ceilinged room on the first floor with olive green walls covered in dirty tapestries. The carpet exhaled little clouds of dust every time someone put their foot on it and the long, moss green velvet curtains were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. It was around these that Mrs. Weasley, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George were grouped; all looking rather peculiar as they had each tied a cloth over their nose and mouth. Each of them was also holding a large bottle of black liquid with a nozzle at the end

Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley said to Harry and Ron the moment she saw them, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad - what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years – "

Hermione's face was half concealed by a tea towel but Harry distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs. Weasley. "Kreachers really old, he probably couldn't manage – "

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," he added, in reply to Harry's enquiring look. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway . . . this writing desk . . ."

He dropped the bag of rats into an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which, Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking slightly.

"Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a Boggart," said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out - knowing my mother, it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," said Mrs. Weasley.

They were both speaking in carefully light, polite voices that told Harry quite plainly that neither had forgotten their disagreement of the night before.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand.

"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. They heard Sirius thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black's screeches echoed up through the house once more:

"Stains of dishonor, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth . . ."

"Close the door, please, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley.

Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing-room door; he wanted to listen to what was going on downstairs. Sirius had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mother's portrait because she had stopped screaming. He heard Sirius walking down the hall, then the clattering of the chain on the front door, and then a deep voice he recognized as Kingsley Shacklebolt's saying, "Hestia's just relieved me, so she's got Moody's Cloak now, thought I'd leave a report for Dumbledore . . ."

Feeling Mrs. Weasley's eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing-room door and rejoined the Doxy party.

XxX

Naruto wasn't sure what the hell was going on with all the screaming going on in the house. So like the curious person he was he decided to investigate. He was walking down the stairs when he saw what appeared to be a hideous leather teddy bear in a loin cloth. The screaming had stopped for now so he decided to follow the curious looking creature into a room it had slipped into.

He was about to enter when he saw Sirius walking up the stairs toward him. "Sirius." He said with a smile.

"Good morning, Naruto, how'd you sleep." He asked.

"Very well, there's not many missions where you get to sleep on an actual bed." he said before glancing at the door. "Did you know you have a weird looking animal in a loin cloth in your home?"

Sirius's smile fell and turned into a scowl. "That's Kreacher, the house-elf, he's supposed to have kept the place clean but he's gone senile."

Sirius walked to the doorway of the room and glared at the house-elf inside. Naruto decided to accompany him.

"Stand up straight," said Sirius impatiently. "Now, what are you up to?"

"Kreacher is cleaning," the elf said. "Kreacher lives to serve lie Noble House of Black – "

"And it's getting blacker every day, it's filthy," said Sirius.

"Master always liked his little joke," said Kreacher, bowing again, and continuing in an undertone, "Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart – "

"My mother didn't have a heart, Kreacher," snapped Sirius. "She kept herself alive out of pure spite."

Kreacher bowed again as he spoke. "Whatever Master says," he muttered furiously. "Master is not fit to wipe slime from his mother's boots, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw Kreacher serving him, how she hated him, what a disappointment he was – "

"I asked you what you were up to," said Sirius coldly. "Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can't throw it out."

"Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master's house," said the elf, then muttered very fast, "Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it's been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it – "

"I thought it might be that," said Sirius, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. "She'll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don't doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher."

It seemed that Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order; nevertheless, the look he gave Sirius as he shuffled out past him was full of deepest loathing and he muttered all the way out of the room.

" - comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw the house now, scum living in it, her treasures thrown out, she swore he was no son of hers and he's back, they say he's a murderer too – "

The elf gave Naruto a nasty glare as he passed.

"Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!" said Sirius irritably as he ushered Naruto in a slammed the door shut.

"Sirius, he's not right in the head," Hermione pleaded, "I don't think he realizes we can hear him."

"He's been alone too long," said Sirius, "taking mad orders from my mother's portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little – "

"If you could just set him free," said Hermione hopefully, "maybe – "

"We can't set him free, he knows too much about the Order;" said Sirius curtly. "And anyway, the shock would kill him. You suggest to him that he leaves this house, see how he takes it."

"Hello, Mister- " Hermione said, trailing off.

"Naruto Uzumaki." He said flashing her a smile. He watched confused as her and the youngest Weasley's face grew red. It reminded him a lot of Hinata.

"Well Naruto, My name is Hermione Granger and this is Ginny." She said gesturing to the young redhead beside her. "You know Harry of course and then there is Ron, Fred and George." She pointed to the other three redheads in the room.

The all gave various hellos with the exception of Harry who glared and turned away from him. Naruto mentally rolled his eyes, that's not the first time he had ever gotten that reaction; this kid was so out of his league.

"Good morning." He told them all.

"I don't suppose-" one of the twins started.

"That you'd show us some cool ninja skills?" the other finished.

Naruto's hand automatically went to the back of his head were he rubbed it shyly. "My skills aren't exactly what you'd call indoor friendly." He said.

"Please Naruto?" Ginny asked with big shiny eyes.

"Naruto." Came his name from the door. He turned around to see Shikamaru standing there with his hands in his pockets. "Dumbledore's here, let's go."

Naruto nodded and said good bye to the wizards before bounding after Shikamaru. "Are you going to bring up what we discussed last night with him?" he asked.

"Yeah it's important that we get more men on the inside, if we want to stop this." Shikamaru said.

The continued to walk down the stairs until they had reached the dark foyer where Dumbledore and Molly were talking quietly to one another. Dumbledore looked up and dismissed Molly who walked down to the kitchen.

"Naruto, Shikamaru," He said politely. "Are you ready to see Hogwarts now?"

Both nodded to the affirmative.

XxX

It had taken nearly four hours for Dumbledore to show them every part of the school and grounds. Shikamaru and Naruto were sure to point out all the week spots such as the forbidden forest where Naruto set up a one of the five tags for the Five Seal Barrier that would keep unwanted people out and prevent any sort of attack against Hogwarts.

Shikamaru also said that it would be important to cut off all form of transportation or communication to the outside, the morning owl service being the only exception. When Dumbledore asked how they were to communicate, Naruto quickly summoned a small toad who would be the go between for all order members. Naruto also suggested that Harry be aware of this unless he accidently let any information leak out, Shikamaru and Dumbledore agreed.

It took a about one hour out of the four for them to close off any of the secret passages out of the school, the last thing they needed was Harry and his friends sneaking off. Shikamaru also thought it wise to set up a sort of system amongst the teachers, ghosts and paintings for if something where to happen inside of the school the information would reach all points it needed to be.

They were now in Dumbledore's office where Naruto had placed a very unique seal, one that made the Flying Thunder God Technique work. He had finally mastered it just a few months ago.

"Well I do believe that's all." Dumbledore said clapping his hands together.

"Not quiet, Naruto and I were alerted last night that the Ministry has passed a new law that says if you can't find a suitable Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher then they will provide one for you." Shikamaru said.

"Yes, I'm afraid Cornelius is bent on having an informant inside of the school." Dumbledore said with a frown.

"It would be a mistake to let this happen, if you let the Minister have his way he'll begin to do a lot more damage and frankly we just don't have the time to deal with his delusions. That's why we are suggesting one of our own to teach this year, undercover." Dumbledore's eyebrows raised but he nodded for them to continue. "He of course will teach the subject to all students but we both know the Minister will send someone anyway, our man will worm his way into this persons good graces and be our informant on Fudge."

"Who did you have in mind?" Dumbledore asked, clearly liking the plan so far.

"Kakashi Hatake." Naruto said beaming. "He was my sensei when I was a genin."

"Yes, I've heard of him, the Copy Ninja." Dumbledore said thoughtfully, stroking his beard. "You shinobi are quite the strategists." He said with a chuckle. "I'll gather all the books that a DADA teacher should know; I trust he'll be able to learn all of this in the one month before the start of term?"

"Kakashi is prodigy who graduated the Academy at the age of five, he should be good." Shikamaru said.

"Then it's all set, I'll require him to be here one week before the start of term." Dumbledore said. "And if that's all than I think it's nearly supper time back at the Order."

"Yes! I'm starving!" Naruto shouted, causing several sleeping portraits to startle awake. Shikamaru rolled his eyes while Dumbledore chuckled at the outburst.

XxX

A few days later, after another day of trying to clean out the house that was desperately fighting back Harry's nerves were nearly shot. Every since the ninja had arrived, Harry felt as though he had been pushed to the back burner. Especially when Uzumaki was concerned. Whenever he walked into a room he had all the men laughing and all the women blushing, he had even seen him make McGonagall blush. He could only imagine how terrible it would be once school starts, he just hopped Cho wouldn't fall for him like everyone else. At least the other ninja, Nara, wasn't so bad. But he did prevent Harry from finding out any more of the Orders plans and what Voldemort was up to.

It's like they were purposely working against him. From what he had read in a book of Hermione's, these Ninja sounded like mercenaries, hired killers. How did Dumbledore know they wouldn't betray him for more money? They probably enjoyed killing as much as Voldemort himself.

Harry sighed. He knew he was being childish about the ninja but he didn't like being kept in the dark and that's exactly what the Ninja were making sure happened. Were their skills really so amazing that they were needed here? He was supposed to be the one to defeat Voldemort, after all he was the one who had done it every time before.

Harry glanced down the dinner table at Uzumaki who had drawn nearly everyone at the table into a story. He was waving his arms around frantically causing those around to laugh.

"What's the matter Harry?" Lupin asked between bites of roast beef.

"Nothing." Harry lied.

"Let me guess, Naruto?" Nara said from beside Lupin.

Harry looked back down to his plate guiltily. Was he really that obvious?

"Don't worry about it." Nara said as he leaned back in his seat. "Naruto's not like anyone else you'll ever meet, in fact he's the whole reason why we won the war last year." Nara said staring at the ceiling without really seeing it.

"Is he really that strong?" Harry asked, curious about Uzumaki.

"He can do things the rest of us can only dream of. But it wasn't always like that." Nara said. "Everyone in our Village used to hate him, he was always alone. I remember parents wouldn't even let their children near him, but he never let it get to him. He's had to rely on himself his whole life and that's what's made him so strong today."

"So, I've been taking care of myself my whole life." Harry argued. "And you all still treat me like a kid."

"No, you had your aunt and uncle to watch after you, even if they did try to ignore you. Naruto's been alone his whole life and hated for something he had no control over. He didn't even learn to read and write till after he graduated the Academy which is pretty impressive of itself." Nara said. "Naruto's had a hard life, harder than most, but I've never seen him cry or give up. He's determined to protect everyone, even his enemies."

"Not everyone can be saved." Harry said thinking of Wormtail and Voldemort.

"Yeah, I used to think that too." Nara said, closing his eyes with a small smile.

"You really should give him a chance Harry." Lupin said. "You know, he's promised to die if it means keeping you alive and the school safe. Not many people would give out such promises so easily."

Harry frowned but said nothing more on the topic.

XxX

"Those in favor of clearing the witness of all charges?" said Madam Bones booming voice.

Harry's head jerked upwards. There were hands in the air, many of them . . . more than half! Breathing very fast, he tried to count, but before he could finish, Madam Bones had said, "And those in favor of conviction?"

Fudge raised his hand; so did half a dozen others, including the witch on his right and the heavily-mustached wizard and the frizzy-haired witch in the second row.

Fudge glanced around at them all; looking as though there was something large stuck in his throat, then lowered his own hand. He took two deep breaths and said, in a voice distorted by suppressed rage, "Very well, very well . . . cleared of all charges."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore briskly. "On another matter entirely, you'll be pleased to know that I've hired a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, A Mister Kakashi Hatake."

"You know that oriental wizards aren't permitted in Europe, much less teach." Fudge said with narrowed eyes.

"Ah, But Mr. Hatake is only of oriental decent. He was very much born in England." Dumbledore said.

"Fine!" Fudge said, clearly at the end of his rope. Dumbledore gave a quick bow before sweeping out of the court room.

Dumbledore's abrupt departure took Harry completely by surprise. He remained sitting where he was in the chained chair, struggling with his feelings of shock and relief. The Wizengamot were all getting to their feet, talking, gathering up their papers and packing them away. Harry stood up. Nobody seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention, except the toad like witch on Fudge's right, who was now gazing down at him instead of at Dumbledore. Ignoring her, he tried to catch Fudge's eye, or Madam Bones', wanting to ask whether he was free to go, but Fudge seemed quite determined not to notice Harry, and Madam Bones was busy with her briefcase, so he took a few tentative steps towards the exit and, when nobody called him back, broke into a very fast walk.

He took the last few steps at a run, wrenched open the door and almost collided with Mr. Weasley, who was standing right outside, looking pale and apprehensive.

"Dumbledore didn't say – "

"Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, "of all charges!"

Beaming, Mr. Weasley seized Harry by the shoulders. "Harry, that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't – "

But Mr. Weasley broke off, because the courtroom door had just opened again. The Wizengamot were filing out.

"Merlin's beard!" exclaimed Mr. Weasley wonderingly, pulling Harry aside to let them all pass. "You were tried by the lull court?"

"I think so," said Harry quietly.

One or two of the wizards nodded to Harry as they passed and a few, including Madam Bones, said, "Morning, Arthur," to Mr. Weasley, but most averted their eyes. Cornelius Fudge and the toad like witch were almost the last to leave the dungeon. Fudge acted as though Mr. Weasley and Harry were part of the wall, the witch looked almost appraisingly at Harry as she passed. Last of all to pass was Percy. Like Fudge, he completely ignored his father and Harry; he marched past clutching a large roll of parchment and a handful of spare quills, his back rigid and his nose in the air. The lines around Mr. Weasley's mouth tightened slightly, but other than this he gave no sign that he had seen his third son.

"I'm going to take you straight back so you can tell the others the good news," he said, beckoning Harry forwards as Percy's heels disappeared up the steps to Level Nine. "I'll drop you off on the way to that toilet in Bethnal Green. Come on . . ."

"Mr. Weasley," Harry spoke up. "Do you know who Kakashi Hatake is?" Harry asked.

"I believe he's the new DADA Professor at Hogwarts." He said, but the way he said it told Harry not to bring it up again.

Maybe this Hatake fellow was a part of the order too; he didn't care, as long as he wasn't a Ninja.

XxX

Over the next few days Harry could not help noticing that there was one person within number twelve, Grimmauld Place, who did not seem wholly overjoyed that he would be returning to Hogwarts. Sirius had put up a very good show of happiness on first hearing the news, wringing Harry's hand and beaming just like the rest of them. Soon, however, he was moodier and surlier than before, talking less to everybody, even Harry, and spending increasing amounts of time shut up in his mother's room with Buckbeak.

"Don't you go feeling guilty!" said Hermione sternly, after Harry had confided some of his feelings to her and Ron while they scrubbed out a moldy cupboard on the third floor a few days later. "You belong at Hogwarts and Sirius knows it. Personally, I think he's being selfish."

"That's a bit harsh, Hermione," said Ron, frowning as he attempted to pry off a bit of mold that had attached itself firmly to his finger, "you wouldn't want to be stuck inside this house without any company."

"He'll have company!" said Hermione. "It's Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, isn't it? He just got his hopes up that Harry would be coming to live here with him."

"I don't think that's true," said Harry, wringing out his cloth. "He wouldn't give me a straight answer when I asked him if I could."

"He just didn't want to get his own hopes up even more," said Hermione wisely. "And he probably felt a bit guilty himself, because I think a part of him was really hoping you'd be expelled. Then you'd both be outcasts together."

"Come off it!" said Harry and Ron together, but Hermione merely shrugged.

"Suit yourselves. But I sometimes think Ron's mum's right and Sirius gets confused about whether you're you or your father, Harry."

"So you think he's touched in the head?" said Harry heatedly.

"No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time," said Hermione simply.

At this point, Mrs. Weasley entered the bedroom behind them. "Still not finished?" she said, poking her head into the cupboard.

"I thought you might be here to tell us to have a break!" said Ron bitterly. "D'you know how much mould we've got rid of since we arrived here?"

"You were so keen to help the Order," said Mrs. Weasley, "you can do your bit by making Headquarters fit to live in."

"I feel like a house-elf," grumbled Ron.

"Well, now you understand what dreadful lives they lead, perhaps you'll be a bit more active in S.P.E.W.!" said Hermione hopefully. "You know, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to show people exactly how horrible it is to clean all the time - we could do a sponsored scrub of Gryffindor common room, all proceeds to SPEW, it would raise awareness as well as funds."

"I'll sponsor you to shut up about SPEW," Ron muttered irritably, but only so Harry could hear him.

How come Naruto and Shikamaru aren't helping make the Order fit to live in?" Ron asked irritably.

"Shikamaru is busy discussing things with Sirius and Lupin and Naruto's training in the drawing room on the second floor." Mrs. Weasley said before leaving them.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw both Ginny and Hermione pause in their cleaning. "Training? Training for what?" Ron asked, not noticing the girl's reactions.

"Well they need to keep in shape, don't they?" Hermione said as she and Ginny began gravitating toward the door.

"Oi, where are you two going?" Fred asked.

"We're going to help mum in the kitchen." Ginny said quickly and pulled Hermione out of the room before they could be questioned further.

"Wanna bet they're going to watch Naruto train?" George asked.

All four boys in the room rolled their eyes, all thinking the same thing, that girls were ridiculous.

XxX

Several hours later, as Harry and Ron were walking upstairs, they spotted an open door and heard voices, or rather giggles. Curious, they followed the sound and peeked in. what they saw just confirmed Harry's earlier thoughts that all girls were crazy.

Inside was Hermione, Ginny, Tonks and even Mrs. Weasley was there, all giggling like little girls and blushing madly. It was no wonder either; Naruto had gotten rid of his odd red cloak and shirt in favor of going shirtless. Needless to say, Harry was jealous. This just proved once again that Naruto was everything he was not, confident, friends with everyone, and was all muscle.

"Wow, Naruto, how do you stay so in shape?" Tonks asked, her hair turning as red as her face in the process.

"Shinobi have to train hard every day." He said coming to sit cross legged in front of the girls.

"So what exactly is your job, back in your Village?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing in particular, I go on missions like all other ninja." He said. "My last mission was to help collect the rest of the tailed beasts and to deliver them to the appropriate Hidden Village." he said.

Ron walked past Harry to take a seat next to Tonks on the floor to listen. Deciding to listen to what Lupin had said, harry followed.

"Tailed beasts?" Ginny asked. "What are those?"

"They are great chakra monsters, also known as demons." He said. "There are nine in total, and usually all of them are sealed inside humans in an attempt to control them. The first and weakest is the One-tailed Raccoon Dog, sometimes referred to as the sand demon for his ability to manipulate the sand. My friend Garra was actually the jinchuriki for the one-tailed, he's also the only person to ever survive an extraction but that's because one of the elders of his village gave her life for him.

"The next one is the Two-Tailed Monster Cat. I don't know much about that one, only that when it is released that its body is engulfed in blue fire and is very fast. After the two-tails is the Three-Tailed Turtle, the tree-tails isn't particularly destructive. Mostly it just wants to be left alone. A few years ago we were sent to retrieve it and the damn thing actually ate me, it was near impossible to get back out especially since it had miniature versions of itself inside trying to attack me.

"Next is the Four-Tailed Monkey, I don't know much about him either only that it and its jinchuriki have lava release." Naruto said and then added at their questioning look. "It usually a bloodline trait and it's when you naturally have an affinity with fire and earth jutsu."

Harry still didn't understand but didn't say anything else.

"Now the five tails is one of the weirder ones. It has the body of a horse and the head of a dolphin with horns. From what I've heard it's not supposed to be particularly violent. Next is the Six-Tailed Slug and yes, it is as gross as it sounds. I actually met its jinchuriki, he could do the coolest bubble jutsu's and he didn't have that great of a seal on the demon.

"After him is the Seven-Tailed Horned Beetle. It's the only demon that didn't belong to one of the elemental nations. After that one is the Eight-tailed Ox, actually it's not an ox, it's like an ox-octopus hybrid, it's really freaky. But he's also the smartest of all the tailed beasts and great with strategy, it current host, B, is the only one able to control it, all the others before him died trying to.

"And last but certainly not least is the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. He's the strongest and most feared out of all the tailed beasts. It's said that with a swipe of only one of his tails, he can crumble mountains and create tsunamis. When I was a baby he actually attacked my Village and nearly destroyed it if it hadn't been for the Fourth Hokage. He was the greatest leader my village ever knew. He ended up sealing the demon inside of a new born baby, giving his life in the process all for the sake of the village."

Naruto finished staring off into space with a faraway smile. "I'm hoping to be Hokage too one day, there's no greater honor than protecting those precious to me."

"That's bloody amazing." Ron said after a moment of silence.

"I'd love to visit your world someday." Hermione said dreamily.

"Depending on what you decide to do after your school I'm sure you'd be able to. Usually witches and wizards are only allowed over to the Hidden Continent for research, same goes for us. This is the first mission any shinobi has ever accepted for the outside."

"I've read that you have a ranking system, what rank are you?" Tonks asked eagerly.

"Well first there are the academy students, you start school at age five and generally graduate at twelve. We have to start school so early because it'd be dangerous to start any later; our skills need to be ingrained in us for us to survive. Then once you pass the academy you are a genin and assigned to a team of two other genin and a Jonin sensei. Usually at this stage you do mostly D and C ranked missions.

"It seems like my team always had to chase after this cat, Tora." Naruto gave a shudder at the memory.

"Then, when your sensei thinks you're ready, you and your team take the chunin exam. I actually only took it once but never passed because our village was attacked during the final task, in fact Shikamaru was the only one promoted to chunin that time. After chunin is jonin, they are given genin teams and get to go on more exciting missions. Then there are also jonin specialists, who specialize in one aspect of being a ninja, such as hand to hand combat or T&I. after that is the ANBU. They go on the really dangerous missions, usually assassinations; they are the elite of the whole village. Then there's the Hokage, the leader of the whole village."

Naruto stopped a second, blushing. "Since I never passed the chunin exam I got sort of a field promotion when I was fifteen when I had mastered the Sage Art." He said.

"Oh, what's that?" Hermione asked.

"It means I'm able to call on the chakra from nature and use it in battle." He said.

"So where does that put you at?" Ginny asked.

"It means I'm one of the strongest in the Village and I get to go on all the best missions." He laughed and Harry noticed that even his laugh was full of life, making him want to join in. harry noticed that he didn't say he was the strongest but one of the strongest, was he just being shy?

"What about Shikamaru? What's his rank?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Ah, he's a jonin and probably the smartest person I've ever known. He can manipulate a battle or mission like it's a game of shogi."

"What's shogi?" Harry asked.

"It's like chess." Hermione answered.

"Naruto, get a shirt on we need you in a meeting." Shikamaru said from the door, startling Harry.

"Right." Naruto said, jumping up and throwing on his mesh shirt, his orange and black jacket and the sleeveless cloak. "I'll see you guys later." He said cheerily before dashing out of the room.

"They don't make them like that in England." Tonks sighed as she watched the empty doorway.

Both Hermione and Ginny giggled furiously at this. "Did you see all those muscles?" Ginny asked. And even Mrs. Weasley giggled this time.

"Bloody hell." Ron muttered low enough for only him to hear. "Let's get out of here I don't want to hear this."

Harry nodded vigorously and they both left to find a less giddy part of the house.

A/N

Look at that, most of it's not cannon and it's still about six thousand words! Yay! Well I hope you enjoyed and please review. Oh also before I forget Naruto and Shikamaru are about nineteen each ad yes the fourth shinobi war is over with Madra being defeated. Anyway I hope you like this chapter and once again show me some love and review.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry tiptoed up the stairs in the hall past the stuffed elf-heads, he really was happy for Ron and Hermione but he was also glad to be on his own again, but as he approached the first landing he heard noises. Someone was sobbing in the drawing room.

"Hello?" Harry said.

There was no answer but the sobbing continued. He climbed the remaining stairs two at a time, walked across the landing and opened the drawing-room door.

Someone was cowering against the dark wall, her wand in her hand, her whole body shaking with sobs. Sprawled on the dusty old carpet in a patch of moonlight, clearly dead, was Ron.

All the air seemed to vanish from Harry's lungs; he felt as though he were falling through the floor; his brain turned icy cold - Ron dead, no, it couldn't be - But wait a moment, it couldn't be - Ron was downstairs -

"Mrs. Weasley?" Harry croaked.

"R - r - riddikulus!" Mrs. Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron's body.

Crack,

Ron's body turned into Bill's, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever.

"R - riddikulus!" she sobbed again.

Crack.

Mr. Weasley's body replaced Bill's, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.

"No!" Mrs. Weasley moaned. "No . . . riddikulus! Riddikulus! RID-DIKULUS!"

Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry . . .

"Mrs. Weasley, just get out of here!" shouted Harry, staring down at his own dead body on the floor. "Let someone else – "

"What's going on?"

Lupin had come running into the room, closely followed by Sirius and Naruto, with Moody stumping along behind them. Lupin looked from Mrs. Weasley to the dead Harry on the floor and seemed to understand in an instant.

"What is that?" Naruto asked, walking further into the room to get a closer look. But before anyone could stop him the boggart spotted him.

Crack.

There stood a pale boy about Harry's age with black hair and strange red eyes that bleed freely. His strange outfit was torn and covered in dirt and blood.

Naruto stood stock still, his mouth was moving but no words came out.

Lupin stepped forward, pulling out his own wand, he said, very firmly and clearly:

"Riddikulus!"

The bleeding pale boy vanished. A silvery orb hung in the air over the spot where it had lain. Lupin waved his wand once more and the orb vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Oh - oh - oh!" gulped Mrs. Weasley, and she broke into a storm of crying, her face in her hands.

"Molly" said Lupin bleakly, walking over to her. "Molly don't . . ."

Next second, she was sobbing her heart out on Lupin's shoulder.

"Molly it was just a Boggart," he said soothingly, patting her on the head. "Just a stupid Boggart . . ."

"I see them d - d - dead all the time!" Mrs. Weasley moaned into his shoulder. "All the t - t - time! I d - d - dream about it . . ."

Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the Boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain. Moody was looking at Harry, who avoided his gaze. He had a funny feeling Moody's magical eye had followed him all the way out of the kitchen.

"D - d - don't tell Arthur," Mrs. Weasley was gulping now, mopping her eyes frantically with her cuffs. "I d - d - don't want him to know . . . being silly . . ."

Lupin handed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose.

"Harry, I'm so sorry. What must you think of me?" she said shakily. "Not even able to get rid of a Boggart . . ."

"Don't be stupid," said Harry, trying to smile.

"I'm just s - s - so worried," she said, tears spilling out of her eyes again. "Half the f - f - family's in the Order, it'll b - b - be a miracle if we all come through this . . . and P - P - Percy's not talking to us . . . what if something d-d - dreadful happens and we've never m - m - made it up with him? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's g - g - going to look after Ron and Ginny?"

"Molly, that's enough," said Lupin firmly. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to – "

Mrs. Weasley gave a little squeak of fright at the sound of the name.

"Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing his name - look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time. You weren't in the Order then, you don't understand. Last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one . . ."

Harry thought of the photograph again, of his parents' beaming faces. He knew Moody was still watching him.

"Don't worry about Percy," said Sirius abruptly. "He'll come round. It's only a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he added bitterly.

"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Lupin, smiling slightly, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"

Mrs. Weasley smiled tremulously.

"Being silly," she muttered again, mopping her eyes.

"What the hell is a boggart?" Naruto asked, looking around the room alarmed.

"A boggarts a creature that transforms into your worst fear." Lupin explained, looking at Naruto curiously.

"Which begs the question on who that boy was?" Moody asked with a frown.

Naruto gave a sad smile. "He was my best friend."

"Is he dead now?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

Naruto sighed, dropping the forced smile. "Yeah, killed by his own ambition."

Harry looked away, unable to make eye contact.

Harry, closing his bedroom door behind him some ten minutes later, could not think Mrs. Weasley silly. He could still see his parents beaming up at him from the battered old photograph, unaware that their lives, like so many of those around them, were drawing to a close. The image of the Boggart posing as the corpse of each member of Mrs. Weasley's family in turn kept flashing before his eyes.

Without warning, the scar on his forehead seared with pain again and his stomach churned horribly.

"Cut it out," he said firmly, rubbing the scar as the pain receded.

"First sign of madness, talking to your own head," said a sly voice from the empty picture on the wall.

Harry ignored it. He felt older than he had ever felt in his life and it seemed extraordinary to him that barely an hour ago he had been worried about a joke shop and who had got a prefects badge.

XxX

There was a lot of commotion in the house. From what he heard as he dressed at top speed, Harry gathered that Fred and George had bewitched their trunks to fly downstairs to save the bother of carrying them, with the result that they had hurtled straight into Ginny and knocked her down two flights of stairs into the hall; Mrs. Black and Mrs. Weasley were both screaming at the top of their voices.

" - COULD HAVE DONE HER A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS – "

" - FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS – "

Hermione came hurrying into the room looking flustered, just as Harry was putting on his trainers. Hedwig was swaying or her shoulder, and she was carrying a squirming Crookshanks in her arms. "Mum and Dad just sent Hedwig back.' The owl fluttered obligingly over and perched on top of her cage. Are you ready yet?"

"Nearly. Is Ginny all right?" Harry asked, shoving on his glasses.

"Mrs. Weasley's patched her up," said Hermione. "But now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short."

"Guard?" said Harry. "We have to go to King's Cross with a guard?"

"You have to go to King's Cross with a guard," Hermione corrected him.

"Why?" said Harry irritably. "I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin to try and do me in."

"I don't know, it's just what Mad-Eye says," said Hermione distractedly, looking at her watch, "but if we don't leave soon we're definitely going to miss the train . . ."

"WILL YOU LOT GET DOWN HERE NOW, PLEASE!" Mrs. Weasley bellowed and Hermione jumped as though scalded and hurried out of the room. Harry seized Hedwig, stuffed her unceremoniously into her cage, and set off downstairs after Hermione, dragging his trunk.

Mrs. Black's portrait was howling with rage but nobody was bothering to close the curtains over her; all the noise in the hall was bound to rouse her again, anyway.

"Harry, you're to come with me, Naruto and Tonks," shouted Mrs. Weasley over the repeated screeches of 'MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT!' – "Leave your trunk and your owl, Alastor's going to deal with the luggage . . . oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"

A bear-like black dog had appeared at Harry's side as he was clambering over the various trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh honestly . . ." said Mrs. Weasley despairingly. "Well, on your own head be it!"

She wrenched open the front door and stepped out into the weak September sunlight. Harry and the dog followed her. The door slammed behind them and Mrs. Black's screeches were cut off instantly.

"Where are Tonks and Naruto?" Harry said, looking round as they went down the stone steps of number twelve, which vanished the moment they reached the pavement.

"They're waiting for us just up here," said Mrs. Weasley stiffly, averting her eyes from the lolloping black dog beside Harry.

Two old women greeted them on the corner. One had tightly curled grey hair and wore a purple hat shaped like a pork pie. The other was taller with a large, sagging bosom.

"Wotcher, Harry," the short one said, winking and identifying herself as Tonks. Which meant the other woman was Naruto; Harry did not want to know how he did that. "Better hurry up, hadn't we, Molly?" she added, checking her watch.

"I know, I know," moaned Mrs. Weasley, lengthening her stride, "but Mad-Eye wanted to wait for Sturgis . . . if only Arthur could have got us cars from the Ministry again . . . but Fudge won't let him borrow so much as an empty ink bottle these days . . . how Muggles can stand travelling without magic . . ."

But the great black dog gave a joyful bark and gamboled around them, snapping at pigeons and chasing its own tail. Harry couldn't help laughing. Sirius had been trapped inside for a very long time. Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips in an almost Aunt Petunia-ish way.

It took them twenty minutes to reach King's Cross on foot and nothing more eventful happened during that time than Sirius scaring a couple of cats for Harry's entertainment. Once inside the station they lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of them leaned against it in turn and fell easily through on to platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families. Harry inhaled the familiar smell and felt his spirits soar . . . he was really going back . . .

"I hope the others make it in time," said Mrs. Weasley anxiously, staring behind her at the wrought-iron arch spanning the platform, through which new arrivals would come.

"Nice dog, Harry!" called a tall boy with dreadlocks.

"Thanks, Lee," said Harry, grinning, as Sirius wagged his tail frantically.

"Oh good," said Mrs. Weasley, sounding relieved, "here's Alastor with the luggage, look . . ."

A porter's cap pulled low over his mismatched eyes, Moody came limping through the archway pushing a trolley loaded with their trunks.

"All OK," he muttered to Mrs. Weasley and Tonks, "don't think we were followed . . ."

Seconds later, Mr. Weasley emerged on to the platform with Ron and Hermione. They had almost unloaded Moody's luggage trolley when Fred, George and Ginny turned up with Lupin.

"No trouble?" growled Moody.

"Nothing," said Lupin.

"I'll still be reporting Sturgis to Dumbledore," said Moody, "that's the second time he's not turned up in a week. Getting as unreliable as Mundungus."

"Well, look after yourselves," said Lupin, shaking hands all round. He reached Harry last and gave him a clap on the shoulder. "You too, Harry. Be careful."

"Yeah, keep your head down and your eyes peeled," said Moody, shaking Harry's hand too. "And don't forget, all of you - careful what you put in writing. If in doubt, don't put it in a letter at all."

"It's been great meeting all of you," said Tonks, hugging Hermione and Ginny. "We'll see you soon, I expect."

A warning whistle sounded; the students still on the platform started hurrying on to the train.

"Quick, quick," said Mrs. Weasley distractedly, hugging them at random and catching Harry twice, "Write . . . be good . . . if you've forgotten anything we'll send it on . . . on to the train, now, hurry . . ."

For one brief moment, the great black dog reared on to its hind legs and placed its front paws on Harry's shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley shoved Harry away towards the train door, hissing, "For heaven's sake, act more like a dog, Sirius!"

"See you!" Harry called out of the open window as the train began to move, while Ron, Hermione and Ginny waved beside him. The figures of Tonks, Lupin, Moody and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shrank rapidly but the black dog was bounding alongside the window, wagging its tail; blurred people on the platform were laughing to see it chasing the train, then they rounded a bend, and Sirius was gone. Harry hadn't noticed it until then but he couldn't see Naruto anywhere.

XxX

Naruto watched from the shadows as Harry and his friends made their way over to a carriage. He needed to get to them now, before they left the platform entirely. He quickly transformed into a short brunette and pushed his way through the crowd. When he finally reached Harry, he gave a firm tug on his sleeve causing him to turn around and look down.

He quickly shoved the fake sickles into his hand making Harry even more confused. "It's me Naruto, keep one and give the rest to Hermione and the Weasley's. If you ever need me you rub it and think my name and I'll come find you." he said and before Harry had time to respond he slipped back in to the crowd.

He had wanted to give them the enchanted coins on the train but they had ended up sharing a cabin with other students who weren't supposed to know what the order was or who he was… yet.

Naruto ran alongside the tree line to the forest of death, careful to keep an eye on the carriages. Once the children had reached the castle he used the tree climbing technique Kakashi had taught him all those years ago to walk up the side of the castle to the open windows the owls used. Once he was up in the rafters, covered by the enchanted ceiling, he located Harry and his friends and made himself comfortable.

At the teachers table he could see Kakashi-sensei sitting between Minerva and the Herbology teacher, Professor Sprout. The only thing was he didn't look like the Kakashi he had come to know, he looked like the adult version of the long dead Obito Uchiha. Kakashi had once shared with him that Obito had died saving his life and ultimately gave him his sharringan eye so that he could see the future for him. Obito was the one who taught Kakashi about the importance of teamwork who then taught Naruto. To help honor the memory of Obito, Naruto had passed down the importance of relying on others to everyone he could.

XxX

The moment they reached Gryffindor's, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth-years and left to sit with them; Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry airy, overly-friendly greetings that made him quite sure they had stopped talking about him a split second before. He had more important things to worry about, however: he was looking over the students' heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.

He still hadn't given Ron, Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny their sickles yet. He had been more than surprised when a non-descript boy had come up to him claiming to be Naruto and handing him money. He supposed it was a good thing to be able to contact Naruto who was a direct link to the order rather than send an owl and hope for the best.

"He's not there." Harry said, noticing that Hagrid wasn't at the staff table.

Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid's size made him instantly obvious in any lineup.

"He can't have left," said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.

"Of course he hasn't," said Harry firmly.

"You don't think he's . . . hurt, or anything, do you?" said Hermione uneasily.

"No," said Harry at once.

"But where is he, then?"

There was a pause, then Harry said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati and Lavender could not hear, "Maybe he's not back yet. You know - from his mission - the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore."

"Yeah . . . yeah, that'll be it," said Ron, sounding reassured, but Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid's absence.

"Who's that?" she said sharply, pointing towards the middle of the staff table.

Harry's eyes followed hers. They lit first upon Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the centre of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore's head was inclined towards the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Harry thought, like somebody's maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and he saw, with a shock of recognition, a pallid, toad like face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.

"It's that Umbridge woman!"

"Who?" said Hermione.

"She was at my hearing, she works for Fudge!"

"Nice cardigan," said Ron, smirking.

"She works for Fudge!" Hermione repeated, frowning. "What on earth's she doing here, then?"

"Dunno . . ."

Hermione scanned the staff table, her eyes narrowed.

"No," she muttered, "no, surely not . . ."

Harry did not understand what she was talking about but did not ask; his attention had been caught by Professor Grubbly-Plank who had just appeared behind the staff table; she worked her way along to the very end and took the seat that ought to have been Hagrid's. That meant the first-years must have crossed the lake and reached the castle, and sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the Entrance Hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first-years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizards hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.

The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first-years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.

The first-years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. Harry recalled, fleetingly, how terrified he had felt when he had stood there; waiting for the unknown test that would determine to which house he belonged.

The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:

_In times of old when I was new_

_And Hogwarts barely started_

_The founders of our noble school_

_Thought never to be parted:_

_United by a common goal,_

_They had the selfsame yearning,_

_To make the world's best magic school_

_And pass along their learning._

_'Together we will build and teach!'_

_The four good friends decided_

_And never did they dream that they_

_Might someday be divided,_

_For were there such friends anywhere_

_As Slytherin and Gryffindor?_

_Unless it was the second pair_

_Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?_

_So how could it have gone so wrong?_

_How could such friendships fail?_

_Why, I was there and so can tell_

_The whole sad, sorry tale._

_Said Slytherin, 'We'll teach just those_

_Whose ancestry is purest.'_

_Said Ravenclaw, 'We'll teach those whose_

_Intelligence is surest.'_

_Said Gryffindor, 'We'll teach all those_

_With brave deeds to their name,'_

_Said Hufflepuff, 'I'll teach the lot,_

_And treat them just the same.'_

_These differences caused little strife_

_When first they came to light,_

_For each of the four founders had_

_A house in which they might_

_Take only those they wanted, so,_

_For instance, Slytherin_

_Took only pure-blood wizards_

_Of great cunning, just like him,_

_And only those of sharpest mind_

_Were taught by Ravenclaw_

_While the bravest and the boldest_

_Went to daring Gryffindor._

_Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,_

_And taught them all she knew,_

_Thus the houses and their founders_

_Retained friendships firm and true._

_So Hogwarts worked in harmony_

_For several happy years,_

_But then discord crept among us_

_Feeding on our faults and fears._

_The houses that, like pillars four,_

_Had once held up our school,_

_Now turned upon each other and,_

_Divided, sought to rule._

_And for a while it seemed the school_

_Must meet an early end,_

_What with dueling and with fighting_

_And the clash of friend on friend_

_And at last there came c morning_

_When old Slytherin departed_

_And though the fighting then died out_

_He left us quite downhearted._

_And never since the founders four_

_Were whittled down to three_

_Have the houses been united_

_As they once were meant to be._

_And now the Sorting Hat is here_

_And you all know the score:_

_I sort you into houses_

_Because that is what I'm for,_

_But this year I'll go further,_

_Listen closely to my song:_

_Though condemned I am to split you_

_Still I worry that it's wrong,_

_Though I must fulfill my duty_

_And must quarter every year_

_Still I wonder whether Sorting_

_May not bring the end I fear._

_Oh, know the perils, read the signs,_

_The warning history shows,_

_For our Hogwarts is in danger_

_From external, deadly foes_

_And we must unite inside her_

_Or we'll crumble from within_

_I have told you, I have warned you . . ._

_Let the Sorting now begin._

The Hat became motionless once more; applause broke out, though it was punctured, for the first time in Harry's memory, with muttering and whispers. All across the Great Hall students were exchanging remarks with their neighbors, and Harry, clapping along with everyone else, knew exactly what they were talking about.

"Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

"Too right it has," said Harry.

The Sorting Hat usually confined itself to describing the different qualities looked for by each of the four Hogwarts houses and its own role in Sorting them. Harry could not remember it ever trying to give the school advice before.

"I wonder if it's ever given warnings before?" said Hermione, sounding slightly anxious.

"Yes, indeed," said Nearly Headless Nick knowledgeably, leaning across Neville towards her (Neville winced; it was very uncomfortable to have a ghost lean through you). "The Hat feels itself honor-bound to give the school due warning whenever it feels – "

But Professor McGonagall, who was waiting to read out the list of first-years' names, was giving the whispering students the sort of look that scorches. Nearly Headless Nick placed a see-through finger to his lips and sat primly upright again as the muttering came to an abrupt end. With a last frowning look that swept the four house tables, Professor McGonagall lowered her eyes to her long piece of parchment and called out the first name.

"Abercrombie, Euan."

The terrified-looking boy Harry had noticed earlier stumbled forwards and put the Hat on his head; it was only prevented from falling right down to his shoulders by his very prominent ears. The Hat considered for a moment, then the rip near the brim opened again and shouted:

"Gryffindor!"

Harry clapped loudly with the rest of Gryffindor house as Euan Abercrombie staggered to their table and sat down, looking as though he would like very much to sink through the floor and never be looked at again.

Slowly, the long line of first-years thinned. In the pauses between the names and the Sorting Hat's decisions, Harry could hear Ron's stomach rumbling loudly. Finally, "Zeller, Rose" was Sorted into Hufflepuff, and Professor McGonagall picked up the Hat and stool and marched them away as Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet.

Whatever his recent bitter feelings had been towards his Headmaster, Harry was somehow soothed to see Dumbledore standing before them all. Between the absence of Hagrid and the presence of those dragonish horses, he had felt that his return to Hogwarts, so long anticipated, was full of unexpected surprises, like jarring notes in a familiar song. But this, at least, was how it was supposed to be: their Headmaster rising to greet them all before the start-of-term feast.

"To our newcomers," said Dumbledore in a ringing voice, his arms stretched wide and a beaming smile on his lips, "welcome! To our old hands - welcome back! There is a time for speech-making, but this is not it. Tuck in!"

There was an appreciative laugh and an outbreak of applause as Dumbledore sat down neatly and threw his long beard over his shoulder so as to keep it out of the way of his plate - for food had appeared out of nowhere, so that the five long tables were groaning under joints and pies and dishes of vegetables, bread and sauces and flagons of pumpkin juice.

"Excellent," said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them on to his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick.

"What were you saying before the Sorting?" Hermione asked the ghost. "About the Hat giving warnings?"

"Oh, yes," said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm. "Yes, I have heard the Hat give several warnings before, always at times when it detects periods of great danger for the school. And always, of course, its advice is the same: stand together, be strong from within."

"Ow kunnit nofe skusin danger ifzat?" said Ron. His mouth was so full Harry thought it was quite an achievement for him to make any noise at all.

"I beg your pardon?" said Nearly Headless Nick politely, while Hermione looked revolted. Ron gave an enormous swallow and said, "How can it know if the school's in danger if it's a Hat?"

"I have no idea," said Nearly Headless Nick. "Of course, it lives in Dumbledore's office, so I daresay it picks things up there."

"And it wants all the houses to be friends?" said Harry, looking over at the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy was holding court. "Fat chance."

"Well, now, you shouldn't take that attitude," said Nick reprovingly. "Peaceful co-operation, that's the key. We ghosts, though we belong to separate houses, maintain links of friendship. In spite of the competitiveness between Gryffindor and Slytherin, I would never dream of seeking an argument with the Bloody Baron."

"Only because you're terrified of him," said Ron.

Nearly Headless Nick looked highly affronted.

"Terrified? I hope I, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, have never been guilty of cowardice in my life! The noble blood that runs in my veins –"

"What blood?" asked Ron. "Surely you haven't still got - ?"

"It's a figure of speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick, now so annoyed his head was trembling ominously on his partially severed neck. "I assume I am still allowed to enjoy the use of whichever words I like, even if the pleasures of eating and drinking are denied me! But I am quite used to students poking fun at my death, I assure you!"

"Nick, he wasn't really laughing at you!" said Hermione, throwing a furious look at Ron.

Unfortunately, Ron's mouth was packed to exploding point again and all he could manage was "Node iddum eentup sechew," which Nick did not seem to think constituted an adequate apology. Rising into the air, he straightened his feathered hat and swept away from them to the other end of the table, coming to rest between the Creevey brothers, Colin and Dennis.

"Well done, Ron," snapped Hermione

"What?" said Ron indignantly, having managed, finally, to swallow his food. "I'm not allowed to ask a simple question?"

"Oh, forget it," said Hermione irritably, and the pair of them spent the rest of the meal in huffy silence.

Harry was too used to their bickering to bother trying to reconcile them; he felt it was a better use of his time to eat his way steadily through his steak and kidney pie, then a large plateful of his favorite treacle tart.

When all the students had finished eating and the noise level in the Hall was starting to creep upwards again, Dumbledore got to his feet once more. Talking ceased immediately as all turned to face the Headmaster. Harry was feeling pleasantly drowsy now. His four-poster bed was waiting somewhere above, wonderfully warm and soft . . .

"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices," said Dumbledore. "First-years ought to know that the Forest in the grounds is out-of-bounds to students - and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too." (Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged smirks.)

"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four-hundred-and-sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door.

"We have had three changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons; we are also delighted to introduce Professor Hatake, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Professor Hatake was a man with dark hair and dark eyes. He was younger than most other Hogwarts teachers and Harry could hear Lavender whisper how cute he was.

"And last but certainly not least, Mrs. Umbridge, Hogwarts new High Inquisitor."

There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause, during which Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged slightly panicked looks; Dumbledore had not said for how long Grubbly-Plank would be teaching or what exactly a High Inquisitor was.

Dumbledore continued, "Tryouts for the house Quidditch teams will take place on the – "

He broke off, looking enquiringly at Professor Umbridge. As she was not much taller standing than sitting, there was a moment when nobody understood why Dumbledore had stopped talking, but then Professor Umbridge cleared her throat, "Hem, hem," and it became clear that she had got to her feet and was intending to make a speech.

Dumbledore only looked taken aback for a moment, then he sat down smartly and looked alertly at Professor Umbridge as though he desired nothing better than to listen to her talk. Other members of staff were not as adept at hiding their surprise. Professor Sprout's eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair and Professor McGonagall's mouth was as thin as Harry had ever seen it. No new teacher had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Many of the students were smirking; this woman obviously did not know how things were done at Hogwarts.

"Thank you, Headmaster," Professor Umbridge simpered, "for those kind words of welcome."

Her voice was high-pitched, breathy and little-girlish and, again, Harry felt a powerful rush of dislike that he could not explain to himself; all he knew was that he loathed everything about her, from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan. She gave another little throat-clearing cough ('hem, hem') and continued.

"Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!" She smiled, revealing very pointed teeth. And to see such happy little faces looking up at me!"

Harry glanced around. None of the faces he could see looked happy. On the contrary, they all looked rather taken-aback at being addressed as though they were five years old.

"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"

Students exchanged looks at this; some of them were barely concealing grins.

"I'll be her friend as long as I don't have to borrow that cardigan," Parvati whispered to Lavender, and both of them lapsed into silent giggles.

Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again ('hem, hem'), but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them.

"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."

Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back to her. Professor McGonagall's dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawk like, and Harry distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge gave another little 'hem, hem' and went on with her speech.

"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation . . ."

Harry found his attentiveness ebbing, as though his brain was slipping in and out of tune. The quiet that always filled the Hall when Dumbledore was speaking was breaking up as students put t heir heads together, whispering and giggling. Over on the Ravenclaw table Cho Chang was chatting animatedly with her friends. A few seats along from Cho, Luna Lovegood had got out The Quibbler again. Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Harry was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect's badge gleaming on his chest.

Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. Harry had the impression that a full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though, judging by her expression, they were not at all to her taste.

". . . because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."

She sat down. Dumbledore clapped. The staff followed his lead, though Harry noticed that several of them brought their hands together only once or twice before stopping. A few students joined in, but most had been taken unawares by the end of the speech, not having listened to more than a few words of it, and before they could start applauding properly, Dumbledore had stood up again.

"Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating," he said, bowing to her. "Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held . . ."

"Yes, it certainly was illuminating," said Hermione in a low voice.

"You're not telling me you enjoyed it?" Ron said quietly, turning a glazed face towards Hermione. "That was about the dullest speech I've ever heard, and I grew up with Percy."

"I said illuminating, not enjoyable," said Hermione. "It explained a lot."

"Did it?" said Harry in surprise. "Sounded like a load of waffle to me."

"There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle," said Hermione grimly.

"Was there?" said Ron blankly.

"How about: 'progress for progress's sake must be discouraged'? How about: 'pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited'?"

"Well, what does that mean?" said Ron impatiently.

"I'll tell you what it means," said Hermione through gritted teeth. "It means the Ministry's interfering at Hogwarts."

There was a great clattering and banging all around them; Dumbledore had obviously just dismissed the school, because everyone was standing up ready to leave the Hall. Hermione jumped up, looking flustered.

"Ron, we're supposed to show the first-years where to go!"

"Oh yeah," said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. "Hey - hey, you lot! Midgets!"

"Ron!"

"Well, they are, they're twitchy . . ."

"I know, but you can't call them midgets! - First-years!" Hermione called commandingly along the table. "This way, please!"

XxX

Naruto smirked,

The Ministry was playing right into Shikamaru's hands.

A/N

Okay chapter four's done, hope you guys enjoyed it! I was tempted to do the boggart as Sasuke where it first showed him at the Valley of the End and then again after he had killed Orochimaru and then finally dead. Oh in this story Sasuke is dead but I haven't decided how yet, I'll cover it in a later chapter. Anyway tell me what you think and leave a review on a side note, I'll have others including Sakura, Hinata, Kiba, Shino all of them pretty much show up at different points during the story.


	5. Chapter 5

Naruto sent out twenty clones to patrol the school and the grounds and watch Harry, while he, the original, went to meet with Dumbledore. He was supposed to meet with him to get Umbridge's file which he would then read before sending it off to Shikamaru. Kakashi would be the one to get into her good graces and ultimately Fudge's too. Being the absolute genius that he is, Shikamaru had already put plans underway to sway opinion within the Ministry and the Wizarding community. Popular opinion would be really starting to change by Christmas at least.

Naruto knocked on the door before him once before entering. Once inside he saw that Kakashi, Minerva and Severus were already inside and waiting on him.

"Naruto." Kakashi said, releasing his transformation jutsu.

Off to Kakashi's side, Naruto saw Minerva give Kakashi a reproving look. Clearly she was not impressed with his tall grey hair or the fact you could only see one eye and nothing more of his face.

"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto said with a big smile. "Have you got to talk to any of the paintings yet?" he asked.

Personally Naruto loved to talk to various painting about the castle; they always had interesting things to say.

"Not yet Naruto, though there was this painting of a man with a hook for a hand that I wouldn't mind chatting with." He said.

"You can talk to the portraits later; right now we need to get on with the meeting before Umbridge catches wind of it." Minerva said impatiently.

"Yes, I've prepared a file on Umbridge for both of you." Dumbledore said handing them both the file. "You'll both need to be on guard around her, I'm afraid she'll have preconceived prejudices against anyone who's been here for as long as Minerva and Severus have. That's why you, Kakashi, will attempt to become her ally.

"Also I've informed Fudge about you Naruto, as far as he knows you are the only shinobi here and your only duty is to protect the school and its occupants." Dumbledore said.

"No doubt they'll try to sway you to be their spy." Minerva said disgusted.

"According to Shikamaru's plan, only Kakashi will pretend to be her pawn while I make it clear to her that I am not loyal to Dumbledore only the school." Naruto said. "She'll probably demand to meet with me as well in the next week or so."

"It might be to our advantage if you let her know that you are here to protect her as well, maybe give her a way to contact you in case she has any more questions." Kakashi said, flipping through the file in his hands.

Naruto grimaced. "I'd rather go on a date with Gamabunta." He muttered under his breath.

"Gamabunta is the Chief Toad, correct?" Dumbledore said curiously.

"Yeah, which reminds me," Naruto reached into his weapons pouch and pulled out more of the silver sickles. "Sirius gave these to me before I left, he said he and his friends used to use them at school to send messages to one another." He handed them out to each teacher. "If you need me just rub it a few times while thinking my name and mine will heat up then I'll come and find you."

Minerva held hers up close to her face while inspecting it. "This certainly does explain a lot of the mischief they got up to while in school." She said causing Dumbledore to chuckle.

"I've also given one each to Harry, Hermione and the Weasley's." he added.

"Why would you do that, they are not part of the Order." Severus said.

"Because they're kids and if they feel like they aren't apart of this then they might try to do something stupid on their own." Kakashi explained. "I had to do the same thing when Naruto was twelve."

"Hey!" Naruto said but no one listened.

"Well, that should be it, and remember either contacts me or Naruto if you need to send something to the Order." Dumbledore said.

Everyone took this as their queue to leave, Kakashi, Severus and Minerva going through the door while Naruto left through the window.

XxX

"Dumbledore didn't even mention how long that Grubbly-Plank woman's staying," Harry said, as they made their way across to the Gryffindor table for breakfast.

"Maybe . . ." said Hermione thoughtfully.

"What?" said both Harry and Ron together.

"Well . . . maybe he didn't want to draw attention to Hagrid not being here."

"What d'you mean, draw attention to it?" said Ron, half-laughing. "How could we not notice?"

Before Hermione could answer, a tall black girl with long braided hair had marched up to Harry.

"Hi, Angelina."

"Hi," she said briskly, "good summer?" And without waiting for an answer, "Listen, I've been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain."

"Nice one," said Harry, grinning at her; he suspected Angelina's pep talks might not be as long-winded as Oliver Wood's had been, which could only be an improvement.

"Yeah, well, we need a new Keeper now Oliver's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new person'll fit in."

"OK," said Harry.

Angelina smiled at him and departed.

"I'd forgotten Wood had left," said Hermione vaguely as she sat down beside Ron and pulled a plate of toast towards her. "I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?"

"I s'pose," said Harry, taking the bench opposite. "He was a good Keeper . . ."

"Still, it won't hurt to have some new blood, will it?" said Ron.

With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They descended all over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners and showering the breakfasters with droplets of water; it was clearly raining hard outside. Hedwig was nowhere to be seen, but Harry was hardly surprised; his only correspondent was Sirius, and he doubted Sirius would have anything new to tell him after only twenty-four hours apart. Hermione, however, had to move her orange juice aside quickly to make way for a large damp barn owl bearing a sodden Daily Prophet in its beak.

"What are you still getting that for?" said Harry irritably, thinking of Seamus as Hermione placed a Knut in the leather pouch on the owl's leg and it took off again. "I'm not bothering . . . load of rubbish."

"It's best to know what the enemy is saying," said Hermione darkly, and she unfurled the newspaper and disappeared behind it, not emerging until Harry and Ron had finished eating. "It seems that someone at the Ministry let it leak out that Naruto's here." Hermione said with a frown.

Harry and Ron both looked up from their eggs and bacon. "What does that mean?" Ron asked.

"It means that Fudge is trying to get Dumbledore kicked out of Hogwarts." Hermione said. "Ninja have always been perceived as more powerful than wizards and blood hungry, parents won't like the fact that Naruto's here. Owls will be flying in demanding his removal."

"Do you think he will?" Harry asked.

"No, he can't." Hermione said, folding her paper up. "From what Naruto and Shikamaru said, they can't leave until the mission is complete."

Professor McGonagall was now moving along the table handing out timetables.

"Look at today!" groaned Ron. "History of Magic, double Potions, Divination and Defense Against the Dark Arts . . . Binns, Snape and Trelawney all in one day! I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted . . ."

"Do mine ears deceive me?" said Fred, arriving with George and squeezing on to the bench beside Harry. "Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons?"

"Look what we've got today," said Ron grumpily, shoving his timetable under Fred's nose. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."

"Fair point, little bro," said Fred, scanning the column. "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

"Why's it cheap?" said Ron suspiciously.

"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said George, helping himself to a kipper.

"Cheers," said Ron moodily, pocketing his timetable, "but I think I'll take the lessons."

"Before I forget." Harry said, reaching into the pockets of his robes he pulled out the sickles. "Naruto gave these to me last night." He handed each one out. "Said if we ever needed to contact him to just rub it and think his name and he'd find us."

Fred and George both began to examine theirs. "Pretty nifty-"

"Bet we could improve it."

XxX

Potions, was a nightmare with Snape's constant veiled insults and intimidation tactics. Harry did catch a few winks in History of Magic but the restfulness it brought him was immediately lost upon entering Trelawney's class, where he was prophesized to die a long and very painful death. He along with all other Gryffindor's were hoping that DADA with the Slytherin's would be better than the rest of the day had been.

When Harry walked into the room he immediately saw what appeared to be a seating chart on the chalk board. He noticed that he, Ron and Hermione weren't seated anywhere near each other. Instead, he sat between Goyle and Pansy Perkins. Ron hadn't fared any better sitting between Crabbe and Malfoy and Hermione on the other said of Malfoy with Millicent Baulstrode on the other.

It was going to be a long year.

Once every one was in their seats with their books out, Professor Hatake stood up from his desk and walked to stand in front of the black board.

"Good afternoon class, my name is Professor Hatake." He said and even though he looked of oriental decent he had a perfect English accent. "Due to your inconsistent teaching the for the last four years in this subject we will be review everything Fourth Year Defense Against the Dark Arts students should know for the first half of the year. For the second half of the year I will be teaching you everything you should know for your O.W.L.s which you will take at the end of the year. I expect you all to receive an Outstanding by the time we are through."

Across the room Harry caught Ron's eye and together they shared a look. Either Hatake was a Ministry Employee or Umbridge had already recruited him to her side.

"Write this down." He commanded and there was a shuffling of paper.

"Every Monday we will have a review. Every Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent studying from your books. Every Thursday will be spent reviewing defensive spells and Dark Arts avoidance. Every Friday you will hand in a four foot review of everything we learned that week and will take a test." He said. "I run a tight shift with no room to goof around; questions of course are acceptable as long as it pertains to this class. If there are any other questions that don't pertain to Defense Against the Dark Arts then please wait until after class is over.

"I do not have favorites and I only give points if a student goes above and beyond expectations. You will not be rewarded for something you should be doing anyway. You'll also notice that I've assigned you each a seat; this is to promote teamwork amongst people from different houses. In the second half of the year you will be doing group projects in teams of two, I will assign these teams and you will never be on a team with someone from your own house.

"For each team that receives an outstanding on a project, each will receive ten points each for their house. Conversely, if anyone receives a poor or below, that team will lose both their houses ten points each."

Harry felt his jaw dropping inch by inch, Hatake was even stricter than McGonagall and Snape put together. How would anyone survive this year?

"Hogwarts is said to produce some of the smartest witches and wizards of the age." Here Hatake paused, scanning over the whole class. "Personally I don't see how." He sneered and Harry felt his eyes narrow. "So I issue this challenge, prove me wrong and show me how extraordinary each of you are."

Harry intended to meet him head on; he didn't care if he did have to work with Malfoy to do it.

"Now, put your wands and books away, it's time to take a test to see just how much you know."

XxX

"Can you believe Hatake?" Ron said in anger as they walked down the halls after class.

"Yes I can, he's genius." Hermione said.

"What?" Harry asked. "He's a tyrant! He expects too much."

"You two," Hermione said exasperated. "He set the bar impossible high and then called us stupid so that we would prove him wrong!"

"But teaming up with the Slytherin's? That's going too far." Ron said and Harry agreed.

"I think it's great." Hermione said. "It's teaching us to stand together in a time of crisis and we are in crisis if I ever saw one."

"Whatever, as long as I don't get teamed up with Crabbe, I'd end up doing the whole project myself." Ron said.

XxX

Dinner that night was a loud and rambunctious affair. News that there was a ninja amongst them had spread like wildfire between the students. Most fifth years and up seemed to almost forget about the mountain paperwork that had been assigned on the first day. Some even claimed that they had seen him. Justin Finch-Fletchley claimed he had blood red eyes and sharp teeth. Unfortunately that was least outlandish 'sighting'. Fred and George had taken it upon themselves to use this as a business opportunity, much to Hermione's chagrin. Harry estimated by the end of the week they would be sold out of ninja repellant products.

According to rumors, Dumbledore was to make an announcement on the subject after dinner tonight. Needless to say, nobody left dinner early to start on homework.

The plates and food cleared and everyone turned silent before Dumbledore even called for it. "I hope you've all had a wonderful first day back to school." He said and there was a smattering of agreement. "Now I believe you all know about our unusual guest this year and I must say that it was rather foolish of me to try and keep him secret in this school.

"Mr. Uzumaki was hired by me to guard this school and its occupants from any outside harm. Now I've been informed that ninja prefer to stay in the shadows so he will rarely be seen, but if you so happen to catch sight of him please do not be alarmed. I've asked him to show himself to you just this once so that you will recognize him and not attack him, which I highly advise against." He said and Harry could have sworn that everyone in the hall was holding their breath in anticipation. "Mr. Uzumaki?"

One minute the space in front of the staff table was empty, the next second Naruto stood there. Gasps filled the room from student and teacher alike at his sudden and soundless entrance. This was the first time Harry had seen him serious and not smiling, he looked very imposing with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked down on all the students impassively and Harry saw the warrior that he actually was.

"Mr. Uzumaki would like me to remind you all that if you are caught out of bounds, out past curfew or attempting to sneak into Hogesmeade, he will detain you and bring you to either me or your head of house for punishment. I suggest you all head this warning as I've been told he's not the gentlest when dealing with 'brats' as he likes to say." Dumbledore told them all with twinkling eyes. "Thank you Mr. Uzumaki."

And just like he had come he was gone, too fast for anyone to see where he had gone to. The hall erupted into talk about Naruto as Dumbledore dismissed all the students to their dormitories.

"Did you see how handsome he was?" Lavender Brown said dreamily behind him.

"Seems to have that effect on all the girls, doesn't he?" Ron said under his breath to Harry.

All Harry could do was nod his head; it must be nice to have so many girls fawning over you.

XxX

Naruto was currently sitting on top of Gryffindor tower writing his mission report of events thus far for Tsunade. So far not much had happened; he and Shikamaru were just preparing to manipulate Fudge and Umbridge to recognize the signs that Voldemort was back before it was too late. He had just finished it and had sent it off with one of his summons when an owl landed next to him with a letter tied to its leg.

It was only an hour ago that he had shown himself to the whole school at Dumbledore's request or more like Umbridge's demand. Naruto and Shikamaru had estimated he would have to reveal himself at least a week into term. But this worked too; it meant that Umbridge was asserting her authority. Pretty soon Kakashi would be pulling her strings like a puppet.

Naruto took the letter from the owl and thanked it, something he had learned to do or suffer being pecked at.

_Mr. Uzumaki,_

_I request a meeting with you tomorrow afternoon at three for tea in my office. If you cannot make it please send a letter back with a time you can make it._

_Sincerely,_

_Dolores Umbridge_

_High Inquisitor_

_Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic_

Naruto rolled his, of course he would be there, he also suspected the Minister might be there as well. Pushing chakra into hand seals, Naruto summoned another toad to deliver the note to Shikamaru, with his own thoughts on the subject added.

XxX

Naruto stood in front Umbridge's office door at exactly three o'clock on the dot. He had received a toad last night informing him to stick to the plan and also told him Sai and Shino would be coming in to do a recon mission in the Department of Mysteries. The order desperately needed a map and he had to agree that there was no one more methodical that ex-ANBU Sai or an Aburame. By the time those two were done the Order would know where every crack and ceiling tile was.

Naruto cleared his thoughts and knocked on the door.

Umbridge answered the door with her sickly sweet smile in place and the little black bow on top of her hair. "Mr. Uzumaki, please come in." She said holding the door back for him to walk through.

Naruto had the strong urge to turn around and run back out of the office instantly. The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each one residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolour kitten wearing a different bow around its neck.

Umbridge walked back to her tidy desk, he had never seen Grandma Tsunade's desk anywhere near this neat before and he doubted he ever would. She sat down and gestured for him to do the same in the seat provided. "Please sit down."

"I'd prefer to stand." He told her and caught her eye give a twitch of irritation, clearly a tell. "I have a school to patrol; I can't spend all afternoon drinking tea." There was no emotion in his voice.

"Of course." She said, sliding a glance to the tea. "But you could at least have just one cup of tea?" she asked sweetly.

"I've agreed to a meeting, not a tea party. Besides I don't eat or drink on duty."

Umbridge pierced her lips together and forced another smile on her face. "Well, straight down to business then, I admire that." she said and looked back up to him. "What exactly is it that Dumbledore hired you to do her?"

"My mission is to keep the school and all occupants safe inside." He said.

She raised her eyebrows as though waiting to hear more. "Nothing more?" she asked.

"No, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less." He said, keeping eye contact with her.

"Did Dumbledore hire you to protect anyone in particular, such as himself or Harry Potter?"

"Dumbledore's specific orders were to keep an eye on Potter; he apparently likes to get in to trouble, but to do no more for him than any other student. I was also ordered not to protect Dumbledore; he says he's perfectly fine of watching out for himself. His only concern was the students."

Umbridge frowned, apparently she wanted incriminating evidence against him, like an assassination plot against Fudge maybe. "And if Dumbledore were to be dismissed before your mission was complete?"

"My Village has already been paid and I am to complete this mission whether Dumbledore is here or not, as per the mission parameters."

She nodded approvingly.

"If the Minister were to hire out your skills, would you switch your loyalty to him?" she asked.

"I cannot take on a new mission in the middle of one and I am neither loyal to Dumbledore or your Minister. My loyalties lie with my Village, they _cannot_ be bought." He said clearly, letting her know she had just insulted him.

"Oh of course, of course-" she said quickly but Naruto cut her off.

"And before you ask, no, my Village will not take on any new missions that conflict with any current missions." He said.

Her sickly smile slipped. "Well I'm sure we could just hire out a ninja from another Village then." She said as though trying to sway him.

"For another village to take on a conflicting mission at this point in time would be a violation of the current treaty amongst all shinobi nations." He said matter-of-factly. "If that's all you need then I'll need to return to my duties, if you have any more questions than feel free to contact me via owl." He said before giving her a short bow and vanishing from her sight.

He immediately when to Dumbledore's office using the Flying Thunder God Technique.

"Ah Naruto, I assume your meeting with Dolores is over?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly.

"Yes." He answered with a quick nod of his head.

"And what are your thoughts on her?" he asked, taking a red colored candy from a dish on his desk.

"She was very insistent I drink tea while she drank nothing herself, there's a good chance she put some sort a truth serum in it. You, as well as the rest of the order need to be on your toes around her. I'll warn the kids."

"I didn't realize she was that devoted to her cause, she could become dangerous if not watched properly." Dumbledore said his eyes down.

"I'm not as smart as Shikamaru but I assume he'll want to get her out of the Minister's good graces as fast as possible." He said.

"It would be for the best." He agreed. "May I borrow one of your charming toads to send him the message?"

Naruto smiled and nodded his head before summoning a toad. "When he finishes writing I want you to take the message to Shikamaru." He told it.

The blue toad with orange spots gave a salute with its webbed hand. "You got it boss." He said.

XxX

"Oh no." Hermione said with absolute dread in her voice.

It was the first Saturday of the term and Harry was exhausted, he had been given more homework in the past week then he had all last year. He wasn't in the mood to play guessing games with Hermione. "What?"

Hermione moved her breakfast out of the way and flattened the paper down before her. "Look at this!"

"I've got all the robes I want," said Ron "No," She said. "Look . . . this little piece here . . ." Ron and Hermione bent closer to read it; the item was barely an inch long and placed right at the bottom of a column. It was headlined:

_TRESPASS AT MINISTRY_

_Sturgis Podmore, 38, of number two, Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, has appeared in front of the Wizengamot charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic on 31" August. Podmore was arrested by Ministry of Magic watchwizard Eric Munch, who found him, attempting to force his way through a top-security door at one o'clock in the morning. Podmore, who refused to speak, in his own defense, was convicted on both charges and sentenced to six months in Azkaban._

"Sturgis Podmore?" said Ron slowly. "He's that bloke who looks like his head's been thatched, isn't he? He's one of the Ord- "

"Ron, shh" said Hermione, casting a terrified look around them.

"Six months in Azkaban!" whispered Harry, shocked. "Just for trying to get through a door!"

"Don't be silly, it wasn't just for trying to get through a door. What on earth was he doing at the Ministry of Magic at one o'clock in the morning?" breathed Hermione.

"D'you reckon he was doing something for the Order?" Ron muttered.

"Wait a moment . . ." said Harry slowly. "Sturgis was supposed to come and see us off, remember?"

The other two looked at him.

"Yeah, he was supposed to be part of our guard going to King's Cross, remember? And Moody was all annoyed because he didn't turn up; so he couldn't have been on a job for them, could he?"

"Well, maybe they didn't expect him to get caught," said Hermione.

"It could be a frame-up!" Ron exclaimed excitedly. "No - listen!" he went on, dropping his voice dramatically at the threatening look on Hermione's face. "The Ministry suspects he's one of Dumbledore's lot so - I dunno - they lured him to the Ministry, and he wasn't trying to get through a door at all! Maybe they've just made something up to get him!"

There was a pause while Harry and Hermione considered this. Harry thought it seemed far-fetched. Hermione, on the other hand, looked rather impressed.

"Do you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true."

She folded up her half of the newspaper thoughtfully. As Harry laid down his knife and fork, she seemed to come out of a reverie.

"Right, well, I think we should tackle that essay for Sprout on self-fertilizing shrubs first and if we're lucky we'll be able to start McGonagall's Inanimatus Conjurus Spell before lunch . . ."

Harry felt a small twinge of guilt at the thought of the pile of homework awaiting him upstairs, but the sky was a clear, exhilarating blue, and he had not been on his Firebolt for a week . . .

"I mean, we can do it tonight," said Ron, as he and Harry walked down the sloping lawns towards the Quidditch pitch, their broomsticks over their shoulders, and with Hermione's dire warnings that they would fail all their OWLs still ringing in their ears. "And we've got tomorrow. She gets too worked up about work, that's her trouble . . ." There was a pause and he added, in a slightly more anxious tone, "D'you think she meant it when she said we weren't copying from her?"

XxX

Harry knew that half the people inside Hogwarts thought him strange, even mad; he knew that the Daily Prophet had been making snide allusions to him for months, but there was something about seeing it written down like that in Percy's letter to Ron, about knowing that Percy was advising Ron to drop him and even to tell tales about him to Umbridge, that made his situation real to him as nothing else had. He had known Percy for four years, had stayed in his house during the summer holidays, shared a tent with him during the Quidditch World Cup, had even been awarded full marks by him in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament last year, yet now, Percy thought him unbalanced and possibly violent.

And with a surge of sympathy for his godfather, Harry thought Sirius was probably the only person he knew who could really understand how he felt at the moment, because Sirius was in the same situation. Nearly everyone in the Wizarding world thought Sirius a dangerous murderer and a great Voldemort supporter and he had had to live with that knowledge for fourteen years . . .

Harry blinked. He had just seen something in the fire that could not have been there. It had flashed into sight and vanished immediately. No . . . it could not have been . . . he had imagined it because he had been thinking about Sirius . . .

"OK, write that down," Hermione said to Ron, pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, "then add this conclusion I've written for you."

"Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met," said Ron weakly, "and if I'm ever rude to you again – "

" - I'll know you're back to normal," said Hermione. "Harry, yours is OK except for this bit at the end, I think you must have misheard Professor Sinistra, Europa's covered in ice, not mice - 'Harry?"

Harry had slid off his chair on to his knees and was now crouching on the singed and threadbare hearthrug, gazing into the flames.

"Er - Harry?" said Ron uncertainly. "Why are you down there?"

"Because I've just seen Sirius's head in the fire," said Harry.

He spoke quite calmly; after all, he had seen Sirius's head in this very fire the previous year and talked to it, too; nevertheless, he could not be sure that he had really seen it this time . . . it had vanished so quickly . . .

"Sirius's head?" Hermione repeated. "You mean like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament? But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too - Sirius!"

She gasped, gazing at the fire; Ron dropped his quill. There in the middle of the dancing flames sat Sirius's head, long dark hair failing around his grinning face.

"I was starting to think you'd go to bed before everyone else had disappeared," he said. "I've been checking every hour."

"You've been popping into the fire every hour?" Harry said, half-laughing.

"Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear."

"But what if you'd been seen?" said Hermione anxiously.

"Well, I think a girl - first-year, by the look of her - might've got a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry," Sirius said hastily, as Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, "I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll bet she just thought I was an oddly-shaped log or something."

"But, Sirius, this is taking an awful risk – " Hermione began.

"You sound like Molly," said Sirius. "This was the only way I could come up with of answering Harry's letter without resorting to a code - and codes are breakable."

At the mention of Harry's letter, Hermione and Ron both turned to stare at him.

"You didn't say you'd written to Sirius!" said Hermione accusingly.

"I forgot," said Harry, which was perfectly true; his meeting with Cho in the Owlery had driven everything before it out of his mind. "Don't look at me like that, Hermione, there was no way anyone would have got secret information out of it, was there, Sirius?"

"No, it was very good," said Sirius, smiling. "Anyway, we'd better be quick, just in case we're disturbed - your scar."

"What about - ?" Ron began, but Hermione interrupted him.

"We'll tell you afterwards. Go on, Sirius."

"Well, I know it can't be fun when it hurts, but we don't think it's anything to really worry about. It kept aching all last year, didn't it?"

"Yeah, and Dumbledore said it happened whenever Voldemort was feeling a powerful emotion," said Harry, ignoring, as usual, Ron and Hermione's winces. "So maybe he was just, I dunno, really angry or something the night I had that detention."

"Well, now he's back it's bound to hurt more often," said Sirius.

"So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbridge touching me when I was in detention with her?" Harry asked.

"I doubt it," said Sirius. "I know her by reputation and I'm sure she's no Death Eater – "

"She's foul enough to be one," said Harry darkly, and Ron and Hermione nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters,' said Sirius with a wry smile. "I know she's a nasty piece of work, though - you should hear Remus talk about her."

"Does Lupin know her?" asked Harry quickly, remembering Umbridge's comments about dangerous half-breeds during her first lesson.

"No," said Sirius, "but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job."

Harry remembered how much shabbier Lupin looked these days and his dislike of Umbridge deepened even further.

"What's she got against werewolves?" said Hermione angrily.

"Scared of them, I expect," said Sirius, smiling at her indignation. "Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose."

Ron laughed but Hermione looked upset.

"Sirius!" she said reproachfully. "Honestly, if you made a bit of an effort with Kreacher, I'm sure he'd respond. After all, you are the only member of his family he's got left, and Professor Dumbledore said – "

"So, what are Hatake's lessons like?" Sirius interrupted. "McGonagall says that Umbridge just raves about him, is he teaching you to kill half-breeds?"

"No," said Harry, ignoring Hermione's affronted look at being cut off in her defense of Kreacher. "We haven't used magic at all! We just review what we've already learned."

"All we do is read the stupid textbook and take tests." said Ron.

"Ah, well, that figures," said Sirius. "Our information from inside the Ministry is that Fudge doesn't want you trained in combat. It figures that he would get to Hatake before term started."

"Trained in combat!" repeated Harry incredulously. "What does he think we're doing here, forming some sort of wizard army?"

"That's exactly what he thinks you're doing," said Sirius, "or, rather, that's exactly what he's afraid Dumbledore's doing - forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic."

There was a pause at this, then Ron said, "That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard, including all the stuff that Luna Lovegood comes out with."

"So we're being prevented from learning Defense Against the Dark Arts because Fudge is scared we'll use spells against the Ministry?" said Hermione, looking furious.

"Yep," said Sirius. "Fudge thinks Dumbledore will stop at nothing to seize power. He's getting more paranoid about Dumbledore by the day. It's a matter of time before he has Dumbledore arrested on some trumped-up charge."

This reminded Harry of Percy's letter.

"D'you know if there's going to be anything about Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet tomorrow? Ron's brother Percy reckons there will be – "

"I don't know," said Sirius, "I haven't seen, anyone from the Order all weekend, they're all busy. It's just been Kreacher and me here"

There was a definite note of bitterness in Sirius's voice.

"So you haven't had any news about Hagrid, either?"

"Ah . . ." said Sirius, "well, he was supposed to be back by now, no one's sure what's happened to him." Then, seeing their stricken faces, he added quickly, "But Dumbledore's not worried, so don't you three get yourselves in a state; I'm sure Hagrid's fine."

"But if he was supposed to be back by now . . ." said Hermione in a small, anxious voice.

"Madame Maxime was with him, we've been in touch with her and she says they got separated on the journey home - but there's nothing to suggest he's hurt or - well, nothing to suggest he's not perfectly OK."

Unconvinced, Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged worried looks.

"Listen, don't go asking too many questions about Hagrid," Said Sirius hastily, "it'll just draw even more attention to the fact that he's not back and I know Dumbledore doesn't want that. Hagrid's tough, he'll be OK." And when they did not appear cheered by this, Sirius added, "When's your next Hogesmeade weekend, anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn't we? I thought I could – "

"NO!" said Harry and Hermione together, very loudly.

"Sirius, didn't you see the Daily Prophet?" said Hermione anxiously.

"Oh, that," said Sirius, grinning, "they're always guessing where I am, they haven't really got a clue – "

"Yeah, but we think this time they have," said Harry. "Something Malfoy said on the train made us think he knew it was you, and his father was on the platform, Sirius - you know, Lucius Malfoy - so don't come up here, whatever you do. If Malfoy recognizes you again – "

"All right, all right, I've got the point," said Sirius. He looked most displeased. "Just an idea, thought you might like to get together."

"I would, I just don't want you chucked back in Azkaban!" said Harry.

There was a pause in which Sirius looked out of the fire at Harry, a crease between his sunken eyes.

"You're less like your father than I thought," he said finally, a definite coolness in his voice. "The risk would've been what made it fun for James."

"Look – "

"That's enough." Came a voice behind them causing everyone to jump.

Harry quickly spun around to see Naruto standing there with a frown.

"You three go on to bed I need to speak with Sirius for a moment, and for future notice, please do not use such unsecured locations to speak to Order members."

Harry felt like a child who had done something wrong as he and Ron walked up the stairs to the boy's dormitories.

XxX

Naruto waited till he was sure they had all gone to bed before crouching down in front of Sirius' floating head. This was possibly the weirdest thing he had encountered yet in the Wizarding world.

Sirius started to speak but Naruto held his hand up. "Look I know you hate being cooped up at headquarters, but if you want to talk to Harry this isn't the way to do it. I'm sure if we put our heads together we can come up with something safer than this."

"I know it was reckless, but I just can't stand being forced to stay here and tidy house." He said.

"Yeah been there." He said thinking about how all the Kages had tried to hide away him and B at the start of the war. "I'll talk to Shikamaru and see what we can come up with. In the future when Shikamaru and I trade weekly reports, ask if him if you can use one of my toads to send Harry a message."

"Yeah, yeah." He said, and Naruto suspected he wasn't really hearing what he was saying.

"And don't worry, Shino and Sai are supposed to be arriving at headquarters tomorrow." He said with a smile. "But just be warned that Shino's kind of creepy and Sai is … social stunted." He said deciding that was the right term. "If he insults you point blank don't take it personal, he's just trying to be your friend. He reads about making friends from books and takes things a little too literal."

Sirius gave him an odd look before nodding slowly. "Right, well I should probably get going." He said.

"Right! I'll be reporting to Headquarters Monday afternoon for about an hour, I'll bring some of Fred and Georges new tricks for you to check out." He said giving him the thumbs up.

A/N

Look at that less cannon, hope you enjoy my changes. Also, only the rookie nine (minus Sasuke) and team Gai will probably make appearances, possibly Ibiki. Sorry no Iruka, but maybe Anko. Anyway please review and tell me what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

They had expected to have to comb Hermione's Daily Prophet carefully next morning to find the article Percy had mentioned in his letter. However, the departing delivery owl had barely cleared the top of the milk jug when Hermione let out a huge gasp and flattened the newspaper to reveal a large photograph of Dolores Umbridge, smiling widely and blinking slowly at them from beneath the headline.

_MINISTRY SEEKS EDUCATIONAL REFORM_

_DOLORES UMBRIDGE APPOINTED_

_FIRST EVER HIGH INQUISITOR_

"High Inquisitor-" said Harry darkly, his half-eaten piece of toast slipping from his fingers. "So we finally get to learn what exactly it is she does?"

Hermione read aloud:

"Three weeks ago, the Ministry of Magic passed new legislation giving itself an unprecedented level of control at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

" 'The Minister has been growing uneasy about goings-on at Hogwarts for some time,' said Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley. 'He is now responding to concerns, voiced by anxious parents, who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve of.'

"This is not the first time in recent weeks that the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, has used new laws to effect improvements at the Wizarding School. As recently as 30th August, Educational Decree Number Twenty-two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current Headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person. Luckily or unluckily, Dumbledore was able to appoint one Kakashi Hatake to the position."

"Instead, the Ministry has now formalized with the passing of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, which creates the new position of Hogwarts High Inquisitor.

" 'This is an exciting new phase in the Minister's plan to get to grips with what some are calling the falling standards at Hogwarts,' said Weasley. 'The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect the educators and make sure that they are coming up to scratch. Ms. Umbridge has been offered this position and we are delighted to say that she has accepted.'

"The Ministry's new moves have received enthusiastic support from parents of students at Hogwarts.

" 'I feel much easier in my mind now that I know Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation,' said Mr. Lucius Malfoy, 41, speaking from his Wiltshire mansion last night. 'Many of us with our children's best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore's eccentric decisions in the last few years and are glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation.'

"Among those eccentric decisions are undoubtedly the controversial staff appointments previously described in this newspaper, which have included the employment of werewolf Remus Lupin, half-giant Rubeus Hagrid and delusional ex-Auror, 'Mad-Eye' Moody and most notably the recent appointment of a ninja.'

"Rumours abound, of course, that Albus Dumbledore, once Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, is no longer up to the task of managing the prestigious school of Hogwarts.

" 'I think the appointment of the Inquisitor is a first step towards ensuring that Hogwarts has a headmaster in whom we can all repose our confidence,' said a Ministry insider last night.

"Wizengamot elders Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden have resigned in protest at the introduction of the post of Inquisitor to Hogwarts.

" 'Hogwarts is a school, not an outpost of Cornelius Fudge's office,' said Madam Marchbanks. 'This is a further, disgusting attempt to discredit Albus Dumbledore.' (For a full account of Madam Marchbanks's alleged links to subversive goblin groups, turn to page seventeen.)"

Hermione finished reading and looked across the table at the other two.

"So now we know how we ended up with Umbridge! Fudge passed this 'Educational Decree' and forced her on us! And he's given her the power to inspect the teachers and sack them!" Hermione was breathing fast and her eyes were very bright. "I can't believe this. It's outrageous!"

"I know it is," said Harry.

But a grin was unfurling on Ron's face.

"What?" said Harry and Hermione together, staring at him.

"Oh, I can't wait to see McGonagall inspected," said Ron happily. "Umbridge won't know what's hit her."

"Well, come on," said Hermione, jumping up, "we'd better get going, if she's inspecting Binna's class we don't want to be late . . ."

But Professor Umbridge was not inspecting their History of Magic lesson, which was just as dull as the previous Monday, nor was she in Snape's dungeon when they arrived for double Potions, where Harry's moonstone essay was handed back to him with a large, spiky black 'D' scrawled in an upper corner.

XxX

_Dolores Umbridge,_

_I request that meet me in my office at two-thirty on Wednesday for tea, to discuss when you are to inspect my classes. You're attendance is greatly appreciated._

_Sincerely,_

_Kakashi Hatake_

_Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor_

XxX

Kakashi waited patiently in his office for Umbridge. He knew it was a bold move, but also knew she would jump at the chance for an ally who wasn't from the ministry as long as she could flaunt her authority. He had asked the house-elves to prepare a traditional earl grey tea, personally he preferred green tea but he was supposed to be English, born and bred.

There was a light rap on his door and he stood to answer it. When he opened there stood Umbridge in her disgustingly pink outfit and false smile.

"Ms. Umbridge," he said graciously, letting her waddle past him. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"I must admit that I was surprised to receive an invitation to discuss your class. All the other teachers don't seem too excited about the fact." She said taking a seat in the offered chair.

"The reason I called for a meeting with you is to discuss my lesson plans and which class you would prefer to sit in on." He said making sure to make clear that it was her choice.

She gave him an appraising look before smiling. "Give me an overview of your lesson plans." She said holding her chin higher.

"Of course." He said bowing his head like a good little puppy. "But first, may I pour you some tea?" he asked.

"Please."

Once both cups of tea were poured and both he and Umbridge had taken a sip each he began. "For all students in year's two to seven, we will spend the first half of the year reviewing what they all should know. Usually I wouldn't bother but due to the inconsistent and occasionally eccentric teachings, I've decided this is a must. The second half of the year will be spent learning everything they should be learning this year."

Umbridge nodded approvingly before sipping her tea.

"For every year, first through seventh, Monday's are spent reviewing what will be learned that week. Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be spent reading from the book. Thursdays will be spent either learning defensive spells, only if they apply to what we are studying, and how to avoid being put in situations spells are warranted. Every Friday, students turn in a four foot review of what we learned that week and take a test on it."

"Spells? Surely you don't think they'll need them?" She asked with raised eyebrows.

"If they pay attention in class and follow all laws set by the Ministry, then no, I expect they'll never have to use spells. But there are other dangers out there that can't be predicted, werewolves, giants, ect. The students need to learn to defend themselves in such cases." He said appealing to her hatred of half-breeds.

"Too right you are." She said. "So Professor Hatake, tell me about your family. You appear to be of oriental decent."

"Both my parents were of Japanese decent but were born in America. My father died when I was six and my mother died in child birth. My aunt, who lived in Surrey, adopted me. She soon died after I was seventeen." He said.

"I'm sorry to hear that." she said not sounding sorry at all. "When would you suggest I sit it on your class?" she asked.

"My fourth year classes are going over defensive spells and werewolf avoidance this Thursday. I also have a fifth year class that will be reviewing the importance and misuse of shielding spells later today." He said.

"Either are ideal for your inspection." He said.

"Your Fourth year class has Slytherin's and Gryffindor's in it correct?"

"Yes." He answered.

"Those two houses are legendary for their rivalry, how do you deal with it?" she asked.

"They are arranged in a seating chart and later in the year when they will be working on projects in teams of two they will have to work together there as well or else fail and loose house points." He explained.

"I see," she nodded. "What time is your class today?"

"Right after lunch." He said.

"Good, I shall see you then." She set her tea cup down and stood up.

He saw her to the door and closed it behind her. When he turned around the open window that was on the other side of his office now held a blonde ninja with an affinity for orange.

"You played her like a drum, can't wait to see what you do in class today." Naruto said with his infamous impish smile.

XxX

When Harry walked into DADA that afternoon he was unpleasantly surprised to see Umbridge sitting in the corner of the room with a clipboard. Sitting down in his seat he turned his attention to Hatake, who seemed oblivious to her as he flipped the pages in his book.

Once everyone had been seated he looked up from his book and walked to the front of the class. "Paper and quills out." He said briskly. "Today I will be giving you an over few of standard defensive spells and their misuse." He started.

Something in Harry snapped, between what Hatake had just said and Umbridge nodding approvingly. He raised his hand into the air, causing a few glances his way.

Hatake raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Potter."

"Excuse me but how can a defensive spell be misused?" he asked, barely able to contain his anger.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Umbridge scribble something down on her clipboard before turning to Hatake.

"Pay attention and you'll find out." He said, looking down his nose at Harry. "Now let's start with the basic spells and their misuses, shall we?"

Harry bit his tongue and began taking notes, all the time growing hotter under the collar. Occasional he would look up and see Hermione start to raise her hand but think better of it, the same went for Ron who was scowling between Hatake and Umbridge.

After about thirty more minutes, Harry's anger got the better of him and he raised his hand once more, glaring at Hatake.

"Yes, Mister Potter?" he asked, pausing in his lecture about Ministry officials.

"Yes I'd like to know exactly when we are to use defensive spells if Voldemort has Death Eaters working in the Ministry?"

Everyone in the room flinched at the name as was to be expected.

"As I stated at the start of term, I only answer questions that pertain to the subject we are studying." He said calmly.

"Voldemort's all about the Dark Arts." He argued. "Why aren't you teaching us useful things, there's a war coming and we'll all be annihilated because the Ministry's too afraid to admit he's back!"

There were gasps around the room at Harry's words. Umbridge was drilling holes into his head but he ignored her for the time being. "If you would like information on the Ministries actions and the reasons behind them, then please write a letter to a ministry official. Do not, however, interrupt my class again. Twenty points from Gryffindor."

"Alright then." He shouted angrily and turning to Umbridge. "How do you explain how Cedric died?"

Everyone in the class began to whisper.

"What happened to Mister Diggory was unfortunate but that does not prove that once dead Dark Wizards have returned to life." She said with a smile.

"VOLDEMORT KILLED CEDRIC!" he roared.

"Enough!" Hatake said, showing an emotion other than being board, anger. "That is enough Mister Potter. Since you have not only disrupted my class you have also insulted our guest, I believe it should be up to her to decide your punishment."

Umbridge's face lit up with a malicious smile. "One weeks worth of detention with me and a fifty point deduction should be suffice." She said sweetly.

Hatake nodded in agreement. "Now that that's settled, you'll leave my class for the day." He walked over to his books and wrote something on a piece of parchment before handing it to Harry. "Take this to Professor McGonagall." He told him.

Harry glared at him before snatching the paper out of his hands and roughly shoving everything back into his bag.

XxX

At five to five Harry bade the other two goodbye and set off for Umbridge's office on the third floor. When he knocked on the door she called, "Come in," in a sugary voice. He entered cautiously, looking around.

The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each one residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolour kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. These were so foul that Harry stared at them, transfixed, until Ms. Umbridge spoke again.

"Good evening, Mr. Potter."

Harry started and looked around. He had not noticed her at first because she was wearing a luridly flowered set of robes that blended only too well with the tablecloth on the desk behind her.

"Evening, Ms. Umbridge," Harry said stiffly.

"Well, sit down," she said, pointing towards a small table draped in lace beside which she had drawn up a straight-backed chair. A piece of blank parchment lay on the table, apparently waiting for him.

"This is your punishment for spreading evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories, Mr. Potter."'

Harry felt the blood surge to his head and heard a thumping noise in his ears. So he told 'evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories', did he?

She was watching him with her head slightly to one side, still smiling widely, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and was waiting to see whether he would start shouting again. With a massive effort, Harry looked away from her, dropped his schoolbag beside the straight-backed chair and sat down.

"There," said Umbridge sweetly, "we're getting better at controlling our temper already, aren't we? Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr. Potter. No, not with your quill," she added, as Harry bent down to open his bag. "You're going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are."

She handed him a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point.

"I want you to write, I must not tell lies," she told him softly.

"How many times?" Harry asked, with a creditable imitation of politeness.

"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," said Umbridge sweetly. "Off you go."

She moved over to her desk, sat down and bent over a stack of parchment that looked like official documents. Harry raised the sharp black quill, then realized what was missing.

"You haven't given me any ink," he said.

"Oh, you won't need ink," said Professor Umbridge, with the merest suggestion of a laugh in her voice.

Harry placed the point of the quill on the paper and wrote: I must not tell lies.

He let out a gasp of pain. The words had appeared on the parchment in what appeared to be shining red ink. At the same time, the words had appeared on the back of Harry's right hand, cut into his skin as though traced there by a scalpel - yet even as he stared at the shining cut, the skin healed over again, leaving the place where it had been slightly redder than before but quite smooth.

Harry looked round at Umbridge. She was watching him, her wide, toad like mouth stretched in a smile.

"Yes?"

"Nothing," said Harry quietly.

He looked back at the parchment, placed the quill on it once more, wrote I must not tell lies, and felt the searing pain on the back of his hand for a second time; once again, the words had been cut into his skin; once again, they healed over seconds later.

A shriek startled Harry enough to drop the quill and nearly fall out of his seat. When he looked up he saw Naruto standing in front of Umbridge's desk, frowning at her.

"Mr. Uzumaki." She said putting a hand to her chest as though to calm her heart. "You scared me, next time please use the door."

"Excuse me," he said, "but I'll have to stop your detention."

Umbridge blinked at him blankly. "Stop the detention?" she asked sweetly.

Umbridge stood up and straightened herself to her full height which was still a good two feet shorter than Naruto.

"Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall are on their way as we speak." He said.

And at that moment the door opened without so much as a knock. Professor McGonagall burst into the room like an angry bull with Dumbledore walking calmly behind her. she took one look at Harry and the quill and paper in front of him with his blood on it before she rounded on Umbridge.

"What," she asked with barely concealed anger. "do you think you are doing?"

"I'm trying to administer detention, but interruptions keep stalling it." she said sweetly, as though playing dumb.

"This is plain and simple torture!" she hissed, gesturing to Harry.

"In accordance with Decree Three Hundred and Forty-two, blood quills are outlawed as any form of punishment." Naruto spoke up.

Umbridge turned and glared as him.

"Detention is all good and well Dolores, however, I will not stand for you to torture my students no matter their crime." Dumbledore said before turning to Harry. "You will continue your detentions as planned under the supervision of Mr. Uzumaki."

Umbridge didn't say anything as McGonagall and Dumbledore left the room closing the door behind them. Naruto took a position by the door, his eyes on a furious Umbridge who marched over to Harry and snatched the quill away from him. "Finish your lines." She snapped before going back to her desk, sending a dirty glare to Naruto in the process.

Harry would have to remember to thank him later.

XxX

Later when Harry had met up with Ron and Hermione in the library he had told them what had happened. Like he predicted they were both appalled and equally disgusted at her tactics.

"That horrid, horrid woman!" Hermione whispered furiously. "Oh." She said squeezing her eyes shut.

"I'm not too worried about it; Naruto let her know that he'll be keeping an eye on all her activities within the school." He said. "You should have seen her, she looked like she might've popped she was so mad."

"Oh I'll get her." Hermione said to herself.

"What do you mean you'll get her?" Ron asked alarmed.

"I mean that I'm going to give her and Fudge a taste of their own medicine, and I know just how to do it." With that said Hermione gathered her books and rushed from the library, a look of stone headed determination on her face.

"She scares me when she gets like that." Ron said as he and Harry watched her leave.

XxX

Naruto was late; personally, he blamed Kakashi-sensei for being such a bad influence on his impressionable mind. However he knew that excuse wouldn't hold up with Shikamaru or anyone else he knew. His new job of tailing Umbridge every where she went took up a significant portion of time.

He walked past the covered painting of Mrs. Black and into the kitchen where everyone else was congregated. He saw that nearly the whole order was there, the only one who wasn't in on what was going on was Kakashi who was currently watching Umbridge for him under the guise of discussing centaur reform.

"Sorry I'm late." He said, scratching the back of his nervously.

"You're late Naruto." Shino said from his shadowed corner.

"Well I was a student of Kakashi." He said hoping those who knew him would buy it.

"Nice try." Shikamaru said and motioned him over.

On the kitchen table lay a very large map of a set of various rooms and halls. He assumed this was the famous Department of Mysteries. He saw smaller rooms with in other rooms, some marked others not. Currently Shikamaru had his finger on the largest room that had rows and rows of something.

"This is the Hall of Prophecies, guarded by all sorts of spells and curses for anyone who doesn't belong. Lucky for us, you wizards didn't think to guard against Shino's bugs or Sai's art. As far as we know Riddle hasn't got to the prophecy yet."

Naruto smiled, Riddle. It was part of Shikamaru's plan to hit him where it hurt, with his muggle father's last name.

"Best case scenario would be for Riddle or his followers to never get to this point." He pointed to a round room that had many doors. "Worst case scenario would be for him to get all the way through, at which point we would be forced to destroy the prophecy."

Various heads around the room nodded.

"If we were to destroy that prophecy when he was so close, it would make him desperate and carless. That's exactly what we want. It'll force the Ministry to finally take action against him and alert the public to him once again. To make sure he doesn't get the prophecy I've had Naruto here create a special kind of seal."

Naruto reached into his weapons pack and pulled out five seals. Normally Five Seal Barrier tags wouldn't be that difficult to create but he had had to tweak them so that if or when Riddle's subordinates tried to remove them, an exact copy of them with their abilities and minds would pop up.

He placed the seals on the table. "These are Five Seal Barrier tags." He explained. "They are put on various flat surfaces surrounding an area you want to protect. The protected area cannot be attacked, even by magic. The only way to get through is if you have the key or if you remove all five tags simultaneously by hand. I've also booby trapped them so if a Death Eater figures out how to remove them there will be a failsafe to keep the prophecy protected. Whenever someone other than the key holder gets close an exact replica of that person will be formed, they'll have the same powers and the same mind, their only goal is to destroy you."

There was a moment of silence as the witches and wizards let that sink in.

"You ninja are bloody brilliant." Tonks said in wonder from her seat on the other side of the table.

"I'll have the key with me at all times," Shikamaru said. "But as an extra precaution we will rig the entire room with explosives. Hopefully whoever was able to get through will die in the blast and the prophecy will be destroyed. Still I think it's best to keep someone down there as a guard, we'll switch out shifts every six hours."

"This also means we'll need more man power. Unfortunately Naruto will continue to gaurd Potter and Hogwarts and we can't bring too many ninja into the country without raising suspicion- " Shikamaru started.

"Wait," Bill interrupted, "can't you make clones of yourself like Naruto?" he asked.

"Usually jonin can make anywhere from ten to forty clones. It takes a lot of chakra and the longer you keep them up the better the chance of you getting chakra exhaustion and dying. Naruto here happens to have freakishly large chakra reserves and annoyingly high stamina; he can create thousands of clones without breaking a sweat."

"Bloody hell, you're a one man army." Dung said, giving Naruto a slap on the back.

Naruto gave him a smile and rubbed the back of his head shyly.

"So instead of having Naruto do everything we have found a way to get the help we need without stretching our forces too thin." Shikamaru said bringing everyone's attention back to the matter at hand. "Sirius, how do you feel about polyjuice potion?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows, clearly not expecting that of all things. "Anything to help the order." He said after a moment. "Who will I be impersonating?"

"Different people, we'll mostly use you as a lookout at the DoM." Shikamaru said. "Now, for our last piece of business. To ensure that if you are captured no information on the order leaks out, there will be a seal placed on each of your tongues."

Some of the members looked appalled. "It won't hurt you; it just makes sure you won't squeal. We use it on all of our Black Ops agents." Naruto assured them. "And of course it's up for vote, once this is all over I'll remove the seal."

"Now, all in favor of the seal?" Shikamaru asked.

As expected everyone raised their hand.

Because this was a relitivly common seal Shikamaru was accustomed with it and had already prepared tags and passed them out to everyone. They were each instructed to place them on their tongues. Then Naruto, Shikamaru and Sai all went around, burning the seal to them.

The rest of the meeting went rather slow, most of the discussion was about Umbridge and what to do about her. Naruto explained that Kakashi thought it best to get her out of the way soon and replace her. After hearing of her attempted torture of Harry, all agreed readily.

Before Naruto left that night he bid both Sai and Shino a farewell, they would be returning to Konoha, their mission complete.

XxX

Harry had hardly seen Hermione for days except in class and even then she was busy scribbling things down and muttering to herself. Frankly it was starting to worry Harry, last night while Fred and George were testing their experimental sweets on first years, Hermione was huddled up in a corner writing furiously on her parchment.

It was Saturday morning, which marked the official end of his detentions with Umbridge. A welcome relief. Though it had been worth it all to see her glare dagger at Naruto every night only for him to look impassively back at her.

Harry scooped eggs on to his plate to give him the energy to practice with Ron on the Quidditch Field. He was just about to take the first bit when Hermione sat down beside him, nearly shaking with excitement.

"Well, look who's decided to grace us with her presence." Ron said from the other side of the table.

"I've been busy and when you two find out what I have planned you'll be just as excited." She said, sounding extreamly proud of herself as she slathered butter on a bagel.

"And what exactly is that?" Ron asked, not impressed.

Hermione did her best to conceal her smile before leaning in close to them. "We are going to start learning real Defense Against the Dark Arts in secret." She whispered.

"But who's going to teach us?" He asked, wondering if maybe it was Dumbledore.

"Well, I thought you could do it, Harry." She said, leaning back.

"What?" Harry asked thickly. "Me?"

"Yes, you see out of every student in this school, you're the only one who's fought against the dark arts." She reasoned.

"But I didn't know what I was doing!" Harry argued.

"She's got a point though." Ron said thoughtfully.

"It's your instincts that kept you alive Harry," Hermione said. "That's something you can't learn in a book."

Harry looked between his friends, racking his mind for an argument. "But what about Umbridge, surely she wouldn't allow it."

"I've already taken care of that." Hermione said promptly. "I've come up with three different places where we could meet and practice."

"Where?" Ron asked, ignoring Harry's looks of exasperation.

"The Shrieking Shack, the Chamber of Secrets or the Room of Requirement."

"But-" Harry said.

"No buts, I've already been asking around about who might want to join and so far everyone I've talked to has said yes." She said and then, taking a glance around, she produced a piece of parchment with names on it.

"How do you know if you can trust these people?" Ron asked, glancing around the Hall.

"I've bewitched it, anyone who tells anyone else will be hexed so badly they won't be able to speak." Hermione said stuffing the list back into her pocket.

Harry stared at the both of them for a moment.

"Naruto said he might be able to help out a little too and might be able to get Sirius to come too." Hermione said.

It seemed as if everyone was against him now. "Fine, let's do it at the Shrieking Shack for the first meeting. Or have you already planned that part out too?"  
>he asked.<p>

"No, no, the Shrieking Shack is perfect." Hermione said hurriedly before taking a bite of her bagel.

"Oi," Ron said, drawing their attention to him. "How are we going to get everyone there without being seen?"

"Naruto said he could take care of that, but we're all meeting in the Three Broom Sticks next Hogesmeade weekend." She said.

"Won't we be overheard?" Ron asked.

"No, it'll be too loud in there for anyone to hear anything except the person right beside them." Hermione said.

Harry nodded with her reasoning. He would have suggested the Hogs Head, but now that Hermione had said it out loud he saw why that was a bad idea. For one they would be easily overheard and it would look suspicious if a bunch of Hogwarts students suddenly turned up in a seedy pub.

A/N

Okay having trouble with inspiration. I know where I want to go with this and the major point between the start and the end but I'm having trouble with the bits that lead up to the major points. Any suggestions?


	7. Chapter 7

It was the first weekend of October and Harry could be found in the Three Broomsticks with Ron and Hermione, waiting for everyone else to show up. Hermione had informed them earlier that Naruto would not be present at the meeting but would talk with them later that night. She also said that it was better if they pretended that they didn't know who he really was, there would be too many questions from the others about him.

"When did you say they were supposed to be here?" Harry asked Hermione.

She looked down at her watch. "They should be arriving soon."

First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with (Harry's stomach did a back-flip) Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends, then (on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by accident) Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait down her back whose name Harry did not know; three Ravenclaw boys he was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom Harry recognized vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and, bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.

"A couple of people?" said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. "A couple of people?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," said Hermione happily.

In twos and threes the new arrivals settled around Harry, Ron and Hermione, some looking rather excited, others curious, Luna Lovegood gazing dreamily into space. When everybody had pulled up a chair, the chatter died out. Every eye was upon Harry.

"Er," said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well - er - hi."

The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry.

"Well . . . erm . . . well, you know why you're here. Erm . . . well, Harry here had the idea - I mean" Harry had thrown her a sharp look. "I had the idea - that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts - and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Hatake is doing with us – " Hermione's voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident. " - because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts – "

"Hear, hear," said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened.

" - Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands." She paused, looked sideways at Harry and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells – "

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?" said Michael Corner, who was watching her closely.

"Of course I do," said Hermione at once. "But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defense because . . . because . . ." she took a great breath and finished, "because Lord Voldemort is back."

Luckily, Hermione had had the foresight to cast a charm around them all so that it would seem they were all chatting amongst themselves. The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

"Well . . . that's the plan, anyway," said Hermione. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to – "

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice.

"Well, Dumbledore believes it – " Hermione began.

"You mean, Dumbledore believes him," said the blond boy, nodding at Harry.

"Who are you?" said Ron, rather rudely.

"Zacharias Smith," said the boy, "and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back."

"Look," said Hermione, intervening swiftly, "that's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about – "

"It's OK, Hermione," said Harry.

It had just dawned on him why there were so many people there. He thought Hermione should have seen this coming. Some of these people - maybe even most of them - had turned up in the hopes of hearing Harry's story firsthand.

"What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?" he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the face. "I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you won't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke.

Zacharias said dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know – "

"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you," Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith's aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."

He cast an angry look in Hermione's direction. This was, he felt, all her fault; she had decided to display him like some sort of freak and of course they had all turned up to see just now wild his story was. But none of them left their seats, not even Zacharias Smith, though he continued to gaze intently at Harry.

"So," said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. "So . . . like I was saying . . . if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to – "

"Is it true," interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?"

There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

"Yeah," said Harry slightly defensively.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

The phrase stirred something in Harry's memory.

"Er - you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" he asked.

The girl smiled.

"She's my auntie," she said. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So - is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Blimey, Harry!" said Lee, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," said Fred, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."

"She's not wrong," mumbled Harry, and a couple of people laughed.

"And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year . . ."

"Er - yeah, I did, yeah," said Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said "Wow!" softly. Harry was feeling slightly hot around the collar now; he was determinedly looking anywhere but at Cho.

"And in our first year," said Neville to the group at large, "he saved that Philological Stone – "

"Philosopher's," hissed Hermione.

"Yes, that - from You-Know-Who," finished Neville.

Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Galleons.

"And that's not to mention," said Cho (Harry's eyes snapped across to her; she was looking at him, smiling; his stomach did another somersault) "all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and things . . ."

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table. Harry's insides were squirming. He was trying to arrange his face so that he did not look too pleased with himself. The fact that Cho had just praised him made it much, much harder for him to say the thing he had sworn to himself he would tell them.

"Look," he said, and everyone fell silent at once, "I . . . I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but . . . I had a lot of help with all that stuff . . ."

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying . . ."

"Yeah, well – " said Harry, feeling it would be churlish to disagree.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer," said Susan Bones.

"No," said Harry, "no, OK, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is – "

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" said Zacharias Smith.

"Here's an idea," said Ron loudly, before Harry could speak, "why don't you shut your mouth?"

Perhaps the word 'weasel' had affected Ron particularly strongly. In any case, he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias flushed.

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he said.

"That's not what he said," snarled Fred.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" enquired George, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said Fred.

"Yes, well," said Hermione hastily, "moving on . . . the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

There was a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing; though perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in Fred's hand.

"Right," said Hermione, looking relieved that something had at last been settled. "Well, then, the next question is how often we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week – "

"Hang on," said Angelina, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No," said Cho, "nor with ours."

"Nor ours," added Zacharias Smith.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," said Hermione, slightly impatiently, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters – "

"Well said!" barked Ernie Macmillan, who Harry had been expecting to speak long before this. "Personally, I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our OWLs coming up!"

He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry "Surely not!" When nobody spoke, he went on, "I, personally, am at a loss to see why Dumbledore has foisted such a useless teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, the Ministry's is in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spell, what's Dumbledore thinking?"

"We think the reason Umbridge and the Minister doesn't want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione, "is that they've got some . . . some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. They thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry. That's why Dumbledore appointed Hatake, unfortunately, it seems that he's been swayed to do their bidding now."

Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."

"What?" said Harry, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.

"Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths," said Luna solemnly.

"No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione.

"Yes, he has," said Luna.

"What are Heliopaths?" asked Neville, looking blank.

"They're spirits of fire," said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever, "great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of – "

"They don't exist, Neville," said Hermione tartly.

"Oh, yes, they do!" said Luna angrily.

"I'm sorry, but where's the proof of that?" snapped Hermione.

"There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you – "

"Hem, hem," said Ginny, in such a good imitation of Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and have defense lessons?"

"Yes," said Hermione at once, "yes, we were, you're right, Ginny."

"Well, once a week sounds cool," said Lee Jordan.

"As long as – " began Angelina.

"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," said Hermione in a tense voice. "Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet . . ."

This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent.

"Library?" suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.

"I can't see Madam Prince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," said Harry.

"Actually, I already have three different places in mind, in case we need to move." She said drawing attention to her. "There's the Shrieking Shack- "

"I'm not going in there, its haunted." Lavender said, getting several nods of agreement.

"No its not, trust me, we've been there before." Ron said.

"You knew how to get there and you didn't tell us?" Fred cried in fake hurt, his brother pretending to wipe away tears.

"It's the secret passage under the whomping willow, all you have to do is get a long stick and press the knot on the base and the tree will freeze." Harry said.

"But that's not how we'll get there." Hermione said. "Mr. Uzumaki, the ninja is going to help us get to our meeting places so we don't get caught."

There was an immediate babble of whispers on the ninja.

"Will he be teaching us too?" Smith asked.

"We don't know yet, he's just agreed to help us so far." Hermione said

"Well, time's ticking on," said Fred briskly, getting to his feet. "George, Lee and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase; we'll be seeing you all later."

Hermione released the charm and in twos and threes the rest of the group took their leave, too.

XxX

That night Harry, Ron and Hermione stayed up late in the common room, waiting for Naruto to show up. They were currently discussing what they should teach at the first secret defense lesson and doing homework when Naruto appeared before them. Harry wasn't sure he would ever get used to the sudden appearances that Naruto liked to make; there wasn't even the warning crack of apparition.

"So how'd it go?" He asked, walking over to an armchair and taking a seat.

"Better than I expected." Hermione said happily. "Everyone I told about it turned up and all agreed to go to the first meeting."

Naruto nodded.

"Speaking of which, how do you plan to sneak out nearly thirty students to the Shrieking Shack?" Ron asked.

"I can do this very hard space-time jutsu, all I have to do is place a seal somewhere and I can instantly transport to it." He explained. "I can also transport others, before term started; I went all over this castle and put my seals everywhere." He said.

"So it's like apperating?" Hermione asked.

"I guess." Naruto shrugged. "My dad, the one who created this jutsu, used to put his seals on these special kunai and throw them before transporting to them. They called him the Yellow Flash and he had flee on sight orders during the Third Great Shinobi War." he said with a distant smile on his face.

"So your father taught you this special spell- er- jutsu?" Ron asked.

"No, I had to figure it out for myself, it took about a year. Both my parents died the day I was born." Naruto said. "I didn't even know who they were until I was your age."

"What?" Hermione asked and Harry could tell her woman's sensitivity was kicking in. Mrs. Weasley did the same thing with him. "Didn't anyone tell you who they were?"

"They couldn't, my parents were very powerful and had made a lot of enemies. If those enemies found out they had left a defenseless baby son behind I would have been killed." He said. "But that's okay." His brighter than the sun smile was back. "Let's get down to business."

"Right!" Hermione said. "We'll need to clean the shrieking shack up a bit; it's full of dust and broken furniture."

"Yeah, from when Lupin was a student here." Naruto said nodding.

"Yes," Hermione said. "And we'll definitely need to clean the Chamber of secrets up, there's a giant basilisk carcass down there from our second year."

"What's a basilisk?" Naruto asked.

"A giant snake." Harry answered.

Naruto made a face that clearly said he didn't like snakes.

"Anyway, I think we should use the room of requirement unless we have to, it's too easy for others to get in." Hermione said.

"Sounds good, I can send a couple of clones out to the shrieking shack tonight to start cleaning up and setting up for your lessons. Do you know when the first one is it?" Naruto asked.

"Wait, what do you mean clones?" Hermione asked. "Its' impossible by either muggle or magic means."

"Yes, but I'm not a muggle or a wizard." He said with a grin, "I'm a shinobi and I've been creating clones since I was twelve. How do you think I keep track of what goes on in this huge castle?" he laughed.

Hermione stared at him a little longer before snapping out of her stupor. "We aren't sure of the first meeting yet." She said slowly, trying to get herself back on track. "But I've been thinking about those coins Sirius gave to you for us. I'm sure there's a way to charm them like that only to show a date and time. That way if someone's on to us they can't link us all."

"Brilliant," Ron said. "But let's use gallons instead so we don't get ours mixed up."

"Good idea Ron." Hermione said quickly.

"While we are talking about communication, you three have got to stop using owls as a means to talk to order members." Naruto said.

"Then how are we supposed to tell anyone about stuff we find out?" Harry asked hotly.

"There are four people here who have better ways of contacting those in the order, Dumbledore, Severus, Minerva and myself." Naruto said. "Granted the professors are rather busy, so please, if you need to send a letter to Sirius contact me."

"And how exactly is your method superior to owls?" Harry asked. He always felt like a kid when around the ninja.

Naruto bit his thumb with sharper than average canine teeth before smearing the blood on his palm. He then did a few odd hand signs and slammed his hand onto the floor. A ring and a few lines of symbols spread out from his hand on the floor and a poof of white smoke later a bright orange toad with blue swirls stood there.

"Yo!" the toad said before hopping up into Naruto's lap.

"It talked!" Ron said, pressing himself into his arm chair.

If at all possible, the toad raised the hairless eyebrow portion of its face.

"This is Gamakita." Naruto said. "He can deliver messages without being intercepted."

"Hello, Gamakita." Hermione said hesitantly.

"The other members of the order have their own ways of passing on information but they know to be on the lookout for my summons." He said.

"What exactly is a summons?" Ron asked, giving the toad an odd look.

"Well a ninja can sign a contract with a summons animal in blood and to call them forth you have to use a bit of your blood." He explained and the toad took this moment to disappear in a puff of the same white smoke as before. "I can only summon toads though there have been people who have been able to summon multiple animals."

"I don't see what good a toad would do during a dual?" Ron said.

"Gamakita is only one of the smaller toads, now Gamabunta's about as tall as this castle, he's also the Chief Toad." Naruto explained. "He's real mean too, only respects people who prove themselves. I remember this one time when I was thirteen, I summoned him out on the sea. Well as it turns out toads and salt water don't mix, he threw me about three hundred feet into the air before disappearing as punishment." Naruto laughed.

Harry and Ron laughed along with him while Hermione looked horrified.

"How did you survive?" She asked, giving him a once over as though he might still be injured.

"I landed in the sea, it all about how you dive in." He said brushing off her worries.

Hermione didn't seem convinced but dropped it none the less.

The conversation continued about funny things that had happened to Naruto when he was their age. They traded stores and compared Voldemort to Orochimaru, deciding that they were both creepy and the world would be better without the both of them.

XxX

It was several days later and Naruto was hanging out in the rafters over the Great Hall when he felt the silver sickle in his pocket heat up. He pulled it out and saw _H. Potter_ scrawled across it where strange symbols usually were. He closed his eyes as he dispersed all his clones around the castle to find which one was tailing Harry. He was in an unused classroom on the fourth floor. Without further thought Naruto created three clones and left them with instructions to split up and create more clones.

Naruto ran along the high ceilings of the halls until he reached the classroom Harry was waiting for him in. When he entered he saw Harry passing back and forth in front of the windows.

"Hey," Naruto said, getting his attention. "Are you okay?"

"Um yeah." Harry said uncertainly. "I don't know exactly how to say this- "

He stopped when Naruto held his hand up.

Naruto turned back toward the door and slipped a few seals from his weapon pouch. He placed the silencing seals on the door and various other points in the room before he turned back to Harry. "Okay, continue." He said.

"Right," Harry said. "Well I don't know about your world, but in the Wizarding world when someone receives a scar from a powerful curse- " Harry stopped before switching tactics. " –well in my case it made a sort of link between me and Voldemort." He said nodding at his choice of words. "In the past, I've just been able to since when he was near when my scar started hurting.

"But lately, it feels like I've been able to feel his emotions. Does that make any sense?" He asked.

Naruto nodded his head slowly. "I think we better go talk to Dumbledore about this."

"No!" Harry said quickly. "He's got a lot to do, and this isn't really anything big. Look I just had to tell someone but I promise I'll go to Dumbledore if things get worse." He said very fast.

Naruto raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything for a minute. "The second your scar causes you pain again I'm taking you straight to Dumbledore whether you like it or not." He said eventually.

Harry nodded and didn't say anything else.

"Don't you have a class to be in, brat?" He asked good naturedly.

XxX

The next day Naruto was contacted again, but this time by Hermione. She of course wanted to meet in the library. She looked anxious and paced the deserted book isle while Naruto watched her amusedly in the window seal. After another few seconds he decided to make his presence known.

"Hermione?" he said in a voice just above a whisper.

She gave an odd squeak and spun around to face him.

"You gave me a heart attack." She whispered loudly, both her hands over her heart.

He gave her an impish smile. "Sorry."

"I just wanted to let you know that we've decided on tonight at eight for the first meeting." She said. "You've set up your seals in the girl's bathroom on the fourth floor and the boy's bathroom on the second floor, haven't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, did it last night after you three went to bed." he confirmed.

"There should be thirteen boys show up and twelve girls. Harry, Ron and I will use the invisibility cloak and the Marauders Map to get there." She said as though checking everything off mentally in her head. "Did you manage to get those books and list of spells from Sirius and Lupin?"

"Yeah, I already put them in the Shrieking Shack and placed the barrier seals up." he said calmly.

Hermione gave a swift nod, more to herself than Naruto.

"Don't worry, I've instructed my clones to set up interference should anyone try to follow. I've also managed to convince Peeves to cause various distractions in case Filch is anywhere near the coming and going stations." He assured her.

She gave him a weak, appreciative smile. "Right, thank you so much Naruto."

"Anytime." He said.

XxX

It was fifteen minutes until seven o'clock that night and Harry was nervous. Truthfully he'd rather take on the Hungarian Horntail again then attempt to teach a group of his peers. Fortunately, Ron and Hermione looked just as nervous, so that made him feel a little bit better.

At half past seven Harry, Ron and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, Harry clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand. Fifth-years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, but all three of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way along the first floor.

"Hold it," Harry warned; unfolding the piece of parchment at the bottom of the last staircase, tapping it with his wand and muttering, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

A map of Hogwarts appeared on the blank surface of the parchment. Tiny black moving dots, labeled with names, showed where various people were.

"Filch is on the second floor," said Harry, holding the map close to his eyes, "and Mrs. Norris is on the fourth."

"And Umbridge?" said Hermione anxiously.

"In her office," said Harry, pointing. "OK, let's go."

They continued across the entrance hall and through the great doors. Harry pulled out the invisibility cloak and put around himself, Ron and Hermione. Together they scurried across the lawn and to the whomping willow. Hermione pulled her wand out and pointed it at the knot on the base of the tree. Immediately the swaying branches froze in place and the trio scampered to the entrance of the tunnel. Once they were in the tunnel Harry threw the cloak off and looked back at the Map.

The coast was clear.

They followed the tunnel to the shrieking shack and opened the door. Truthfully, they hadn't expected Naruto to be able to do much since he had to keep an eye on the entire school and Umbridge. What they hadn't expected was to see the salvageable furniture fixed, the floors swept and mopped and the windows re-boarded and painted black to prevent any sort of light from spells showing in the windows. Off to the side on a table that's fourth leg was made from two chair legs nailed together, was a large pile of books on defending oneself against the dark arts.

"Blimey, Naruto sure did a good job; I wonder what he'll do with the chamber of secrets." Ron said as Hermione went over to the table to look through the books.

There was a gust of wind and Harry turned to see Neville, Dean, Fred and George, Lee, and the rest of the boys looking startled at something. In the center was Naruto trying not to smile. The boys moved away from him, some stumbling, trying to catch their balance. Naruto did a few more of the odd hand signs and disappeared in a flash of orange, red and yellow.

"That's not normal." Dean muttered as he leaned against the south wall.

Neville looked sick.

"I always pictured the shrieking shack looking more torn up." Lee said with the twins nodding.

"It used to be, Mr. Uzumaki cleaned it up for us while we were in class." Hermione said, not looking up from her book.

There was another gust of wind that signaled the arrival of the girls. Like Neville, most of them looked rather sick from the jutsu Naruto had employed. They too staggered away from him. People had begun to take seats or leaned against a wall, at some point Naruto had jumped up and was sitting cross legged on a bookshelf that had no shelves left.

"Well," said Harry, slightly nervously. "This is the place we've found for practice sessions, and you've - er - obviously found the check point ok."

"It's perfect!" said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.

"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and - er – " He noticed a raised hand. "What, Hermione?"

"I think we ought to elect a leader," said Hermione.

"Harry's leader," said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad.

Harry's stomach did yet another back-flip.

"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," said Hermione, unperturbed. "It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So - everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?"

Everybody put up their hand, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very half-heartedly.

"Er - right, thanks," said Harry, who could feel his face burning. "And - what, Hermione?"

"I also think we ought to have a name," she said brightly, her hand still in the air. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" said Angelina hopefully.

"Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?" suggested Fred.

"I was thinking," said Hermione, frowning at Fred, "more of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings."

"The Defense Association?" said Cho. "The DA for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"

"Yeah, the DA's good," said Ginny. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army, because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this.

"All in favor of the DA?" said Hermione bossily, standing on her tip toes to count. "That's a majority - motion passed!"

She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it on to the wall and wrote across the top in large letters:

_DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY_

"Right," said Harry, when she had sat down again, "shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful – "

"Oh, please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"

"I've used it against him," said Harry quietly. "It saved my life in June."

Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.

"But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave," Harry said.

Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.

"OK," said Harry, his mouth slightly drier than usual with all these eyes upon him, "I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."

"Wait," Smith said and harry ignored the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation. "Will we be learning anything from the ninja?"

All heads turned from Harry to Naruto who was reading a _Hogwarts, a History_. He looked up when he felt all eyes on him and raised his eyebrows. ""Chakra and magic don't mix." He said simply.

"What's chakra?" Cho asked curiously.

Naruto marked his place in the book and closed it, setting it beside him. "Chakra is a combination of our physical energy and spiritual energy; we use chakra for jutsu like you use magic for spells."

"But why doesn't it mix?" Smith asked.

"Theoretically a wizard could do very, very simple jutsu's but it's dangerous because you could die from the amount of magic you would have to use. A shinobi might be able to do a spell only if they have extraordinary chakra control and even then there's a good chance it would blow up in their face. You see while chakra has much more power in it, our jutsu's take up a lot of power. But your magic is so concentrated and evenly distributed spells of all sorts are easy for you and you never run the chance of chakra exhaustion like we do." He explained then gave a nod to Harry to continue.

"Right, well pair up." he said.

It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed. Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up. Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

"You can practice with me," Harry told him. "Right - on the count of three, then - one, two, three – "

The room was suddenly full of shouts of _Expelliarmus_. Wands flew in all directions; missed spells hit books on the table and sent them flying into the air. Harry was too quick for Neville, whose wand went spinning out of his hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks and would have landed on the floor had Naruto not snatched it out of the air and tossed it back. Glancing around, he thought he had been right to suggest they practice the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their feeble spell whooshed over them.

"Expelliarmus!" said Neville, and Harry, caught unawares; tell his wand fly out of his hand.

"I DID IT!" said Neville gleefully. "I've never done it before - I DID IT!"

"Good one!" said Harry encouragingly, deciding not to point out that in a real duel Neville's opponent was unlikely to be staring in the opposite direction with his wand held loosely at his side. "Listen, Neville, can you take it in turns to practice with Ron and Hermione for a couple of minutes so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing?"

"He can work on disarming one of my clones." Naruto offered from his seat. He made a cross with his fingers then there was a cloud of white smoke and a second Naruto sat next to him. A few people clapped at the display.

The second Naruto jumped off the bookshelf and picked up a slim stick that had been up against the wall. Harry assumed he would be using it like a makeshift wand.

Harry moved off into the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Zacharias Smith. Every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound. Harry did not have to look far to solve the mystery: Fred and George were several feet from Smith and taking it in turns to point their wands at his back.

"Sorry Harry," said George hastily, when Harry caught his eye. "Couldn't resist."

Harry walked around the other pairs, trying to correct those who were doing the spell wrong. Ginny was teamed with Michael Corner; she was doing very well, whereas Michael was either very bad or unwilling to jinx her. Ernie Macmillan was flourishing his wand unnecessarily, giving his partner time to get in under his guard; the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the table; Luna Lovegood was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchleys wand spinning out of his hand, at other times merely causing his hair to stand on end.

"OK, stop!" Harry shouted. "Stop. STOP!"

"That wasn't bad," said Harry, "but there's definite room for improvement." Zacharias Smith glared at him. "Let's try again."

He moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions. Slowly, the general performance improved. He didn't even bother with Neville as it seemed Naruto was giving him all the instruction he needed. Harry was actually impressed with the way Naruto encouraged the usually bumbling Neville.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione called from the other end of the room, "have you checked the time?"

He looked down at his watch and was shocked to see it was already ten past nine, which meant they needed to get back to their common rooms immediately or risk being caught and punished by Filch for being out of bounds. He shouted for attention; everybody stopped shouting 'Expelliarmus' and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor.

"Well, that was pretty good," said Harry, "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"

"Sooner!" said Dean Thomas eagerly and many people nodded in agreement.

Angelina, however, said quickly, "The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!"

"Let's say next Wednesday night, then," said Harry, "we can decide on additional meetings then. Come on, we'd better get going."

The boys and girls separated themselves into two groups and Naruto took them back to their respective bathrooms in turn. Then Naruto returned to the Shrieking Shack alone to help him, Ron and Hermione to clean up.

"You know you did really well encouraging Neville." Hermione said as she stacked up the books.

"I guess its preparing me for when I have a genin team of my own." He said as he flipped the couch back after one of the Creevey brothers had crashed into it.

"What's a genin team?" Ron asked.

"Well we usually start the ninja academy when we turn five and usually people graduate when their twelve but there are a few prodigies who graduate early. Anyway after you graduate you're assigned to a team of three genin with one jonin instructor. The jonin in charge then gives a test to the three genin, if they pass they remain genin, if they fail, they go back to the academy for another year."

"Wait, then what was the point of them graduating the academy?" Harry asked confused.

"That was just to select candidates who might be eligible to become ninja. Only nine students are allowed to pass each year." He said. "We make sure that the ninja we send out into battle are ready for it."

"So this second test, given by the jonin instructor, what is it about?" Hermione asked.

"It differs from sensei to sensei, but my team had the bell test. Our sensei had two bells and to pass we each had to capture a bell from him by noon." He started but was cut off.

"If there were only two bells then that would mean that one of you would have to lose, right?" Harry said.

Naruto smiled at him. "That particular test was designed for you to fail, he pit us against each other at every turn. The point of the test was team work you see. The mission isn't worth it if you let your teammates die." Naruto had taken a faraway look as though his thoughts were miles away.

"You passed then?" Hermione asked.

He let out a laugh, "Just barely, I was so headstrong, Sasuke was so stuck up and Sakura was too in love with Sasuke to care about anything else at the time."

"So are you still teammates?" Harry asked.

Naruto frowned now. "No, after about seven months together, Sasuke betrayed the Village to go to Orochimaru for more power. He eventually killed Orochimaru when he decided he couldn't learn anything more from him. He tried to kill me when me and a few others went to bring him back."

"But I thought he was your friend?" Ron said horrified. "How could someone want to kill their friend?"

"Sasuke's brother killed his entire clan when we were six, all to get more power. You see his clan has a very powerful bloodline limit known as the sharringan and to take it to the next level you have to kill the one closest to you. Me and Sasuke were best friends, but his hatred he had for his brother Itachi had overwhelmed him. So he decided to kill me to get that power."

"Well obviously he didn't kill you, so what happened to him?" Harry asked.

Naruto wasn't looking at them anymore; instead he was staring sadly at the wall ahead of him. "He eventually killed Itachi, only after did he find out that the Village ordered him to do it because they were going to try to kill the Hokage to take hold of the Village. Then Sasuke teamed up with Madra who convinced him it was all the Village's fault so Sasuke tried to destroy the Village. Before the end of the last war, Madra killed Sasuke, he had served his purpose and I was too late."

"You still wanted to save him didn't you?" Hermione asked.

Naruto turned to look at her with an expression Harry couldn't read. "He was my friend, besides no one is beyond redemption."

The four of them spent the next ten minutes cleaning in silence, Harry, Ron and Hermione understanding Naruto just a little bit better. Silently, Harry wondered if Naruto's boggart had taken on the form of his friend Sauske.

A/N

I know there was a lot of cannon in this one and I'm sorry but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Please review.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N

Redid the boggart scene in chapter 4 if yall want to take a look.

As the first Quidditch match of the season, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, drew nearer, their DA meetings were put on hold because Angelina insisted on almost daily practices. The fact that the Quidditch Cup had not been held for so long added considerably to the interest and excitement surrounding the forthcoming game; the: Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were taking a lively interest in the outcome, for they, of course, would be playing both teams over the coming year; and the Heads of House of the competing teams, though they attempted to disguise it under a decent pretense of sportsmanship, were determined to see their own side victorious. Harry realized how much Professor McGonagall cared about beating Slytherin when she abstained from giving them homework in the week leading up to the match.

"I think you've got enough to be getting on with at the moment," she said loftily. Nobody could quite believe their ears until she looked directly at Harry and Ron and said grimly, "I've become accustomed to seeing the Quidditch Cup in my study, boys, and I really don't want to have to hand it over to Professor Snape, so use the extra time to practice, won't you?"

Snape was no less obviously partisan; he had booked the Quidditch pitch for Slytherin practice so often that the Gryffindor's had difficulty getting on it to play. He was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital wing with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that she must have attempted a Hair-thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eye-witnesses who insisted they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx while she worked in the library.

The next day Miles Bletchley was found sporting all Gryffindor garb and even red and gold face paint. The peculiar thing about it was that when anyone questioned him about it he would take on a frightened look and begin proclaiming Gryffindor's victory in a loud voice while looking frantically around him. Snape had interrogated Fred and George and several others about the odd occurrence and ended up taking sixty points from the twins despite the lack of evidence. When Harry asked them about it they claimed they were already in detention at the time that Bletchley's personality change had taken place.

Harry felt optimistic about Gryffindor's chances; they had, after all, never lost to Malfoy's team. Admittedly, Ron was still not performing to Wood's standard, but he was working extremely hard to improve. His greatest weakness was a tendency to lose confidence after he'd made a blunder; if he let in one goal he became flustered and was therefore likely to miss more. On the other hand, Harry had seen Ron make some truly spectacular saves when he was on form; during one memorable practice he had hung one-handed from his broom and kicked the Quaffle so hard away from the goal hoop that it soared the length of the pitch and through the center hoop at the other end; the rest of the team felt this save compared favorably with one made recently by Barry Ryan, the Irish International Keeper, against Poland's top Chaser, Ladislaw Zamojski. Even Fred had said that Ron might yet make him and George proud, and that they were seriously considering admitting he was related to them, something they assured him they had been trying to deny for four years.

The only thing really worrying Harry was how much Ron was allowing the tactics of the Slytherin team to upset him before they even got on to the pitch. Harry, of course, had endured their snide comments for over four years, so whispers of, "Hey, Potty, I heard Warrington's sworn to knock you off your broom on Saturday", far from chilling his blood, made him laugh. "Warrington's aim's so pathetic I'd be more worried if he was aiming for the person next to me," he retorted, which made Ron and Hermione laugh and wiped the smirk off Pansy Parkinson's face.

But Ron had never endured a relentless campaign of insults, jeers and intimidation. When Slytherins, some of them seventh-years and considerably larger than he was, muttered as they passed in the corridors, "Got your bed booked in the hospital wing, Weasley" he didn't laugh, but turned a delicate shade of green. When Draco Malfoy imitated Ron dropping the Quaffle (which he did whenever they came within sight of each other), Ron's ears glowed red and his hands shook so badly that he was likely to drop whatever he was holding at the time, too.

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy draughts that bit at exposed hands and faces. The skies and the ceiling of the Great Hall turned a pale, pearly grey, the mountains around Hogwarts were snowcapped, and the temperature in the castle dropped so low that many students wore their thick protective dragon skin gloves in the corridors between lessons.

XxX

Naruto had crouched down on top of one of the towers that surrounded the Quidditch field. He had left nearly thirty clones to patrol the school, ground and forest all so he could finally get a good idea of how this bizarre sport was played. Ron and Harry had painstakingly tried to explain to him how it worked, but Naruto could never get passed the part about flying on brooms. He decided he'd just have to witness it first hand to finally comprehend it.

He watched in excitement as the two teams took the field and the crowd of students below increased their chatter and cheering. Naruto had no doubt his eardrums might very well be shot by the end of the game.

He was brought from his musings as the two teams shot up into the air and the game began. Harry, who played the position of the watcher, circled the field high above all the players to keep his eye out for the little flying gold ball that would end the game. The other team's watcher was doing the same. Naruto thought it might be cheating if he pointed out that the gold ball was fluttering behind Ron's head, well out of sight for any of them.

The other players zoomed around knocking a large red ball between them. Most of the time though it would sail pass Ron and into one of the hoops he was supposed to be guarding. The last two balls were what Naruto was really enjoying watching. Apparently Fred and George were allowed to whack the balls at players of the other team in an attempt to sabotage them. Not that the balls needed to be hit in any direction anyway, they seemed quite aggressive on their own.

At some point in time he had registered that the Slytherin had begun singing a very catchy tune, Weasley is our King. Naruto slide a glance at Ron who was turning an odd shade of green. Harry seemed to have noticed too and was frantically searching for the snitch in an effort to end his comrade's pain.

Naruto glued his eyes to Harry as he apparently spotted the gold ball at the Slytherin end of the field near the goal posts. He performed a spectacular dive; one of the batters on the other team aimed a ball at him in an effort to knock him out of the way for his team's searcher. Fortunately the ball wasn't moving nearly fast enough and only after Harry had caught the gold ball did the other ball hit him in the back causing him to fly off the front of his broom.

Below him the roaring of cheers was damn near deafening and Naruto wondered how someone like Kakashi or Kiba would have been able to stand this.

As the two teams landed Naruto saw Malfoy speaking to Harry and from the look on his face it appeared he was insulting him and succeeding. Without another thought, he used the teleportation jutsu to appear directly behind Malfoy, placing a firm hand on the snotty boys shoulder. Malfoy spun his head around and instantly turned a few shades whiter.

"I think that's enough Malfoy." He said, not letting go of his shoulder.

He looked up and gave a warning look to Harry, Fred and George, all three turned back to their team to continue celebrating.

"I think will be visiting your Head of House." He said and began leading Malfoy directly to where Snape was. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Minerva and Umbridge making their way over as well, no doubt to add their two cents in.

"I would appreciate it," Snape began with a sneer. "If you would unhand my students."

Naruto neither frowned now smiled, instead choosing to remain perfectly neutral. "And I would appreciate it if you," Naruto said as Minerva and Umbridge came to join their little group. "taught your students some much needed manners. In my world if someone was to insult a person's family such as Malfoy has done he would have been dead before he even finished his sentence."

Malfoy whimpered and Snape's eyes narrowed.

"He won't always have someone to cower behind, I suggest you step up and teach him to be a man." He released Malfoy who immediately went to stand slightly behind Snap, which only reinforced his words.

Snape gave him an oily smile. "I'll see to that."

And with that said he ushered Malfoy away.

"Hem, hem." Umbridge said but Naruto ignored her.

"Professor McGonagall, I highly suggest you speak to Potter and the Weasley twins concerning their temper. In my world, those who are brash are the first to die." He said while repressing all the memories of himself doing the exact same thing.

"Hem, hem. Excuse me, Professor McGonagall, Mr. Uzumaki." Umbridge said sweetly.

Naruto resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he turned to face the toad lady. "What is it Dolores?" Minerva snipped.

"I believe Potter and the Wesley's deserve a little more of a punishment that a slap on the hand." She said.

"Unfortunately what you think doesn't matter it's what I think. And I think I will follow Mr. Uzumaki's advice and speak to the students in my house." Minerva said firmly, making it perfectly clear that Umbridge was in absolutely no way, shape or form, going to tell her how to discipline her students.

Naruto was just thankful that he had Iruka as a sensei instead of her; he might not have ever made it out of detention otherwise.

A look passed over Umbridge's face as her smile became forced and tight. Naruto just knew that she was already planning something, it was probably best to alert Shikamaru and Dumbledore as soon as possible.

XxX

Harry sprinted up to the boys' dormitories to fetch the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map from his trunk; he was so quick that he and Ron were ready to leave at least five minutes before Hermione hurried back down from the girls' dormitories, wearing scarf, gloves and one of her own knobbly elf hats.

"Well, it's cold out there!" she said defensively, as Ron clicked his tongue impatiently.

They crept through the portrait hole and covered themselves hastily in the Cloak - Ron had grown so much he now needed to crouch to prevent his feet showing - then, moving slowly and cautiously, they proceeded down the many staircases, pausing at intervals to check on the map for signs of Filch or Mrs. Morris. They were lucky; they saw nobody but Nearly Headless Nick, who was gliding along absent-mindedly humming something that sounded horribly like 'Weasley is our King'. They crept across the Entrance Hall and out into the silent, snowy grounds. With a great leap of his heart, Harry saw little golden squares of light ahead and smoke coiling up from Hagrid's chimney. He set off at a quick march, the other two jostling and bumping along behind him. They crunched excitedly through the thickening snow until at last they reached the wooden front door. When Harry raised his fist and knocked three times, a dog started barking frantically inside.

"Hagrid, it's us!" Harry called through the keyhole.

"Shoulda known!" said a gruff voice.

They beamed at each other under the Cloak; they could tell by Hagrid's voice that he was pleased. "Bin home three seconds . . . out the way, Fang . . . out the way, yeh dozy dog . . ."

The bolt was drawn back, the door creaked open and Hagrid's head appeared in the gap.

Hermione screamed.

"Merlin's beard, keep it down!" said Hagrid hastily, staring wildly over their heads. "Under that Cloak, are yeh? Well, get in, get in!"

"I'm sorry!" Hermione gasped, as the three of them squeezed past Hagrid into the house and pulled the Cloak off themselves so he could see them. "I just - oh, Hagrid!"

"It's nuthin', it's nuthin'!" said Hagrid hastily, shutting the door behind them and hurrying to close all the curtains, but Hermione continued to gaze up at him in horror.

Hagrid's hair was matted with congealed blood and his left eye had been reduced to a puffy slit amid a mass of purple and black bruising. There were many cuts on his face and hands, some of them still bleeding, and he was moving gingerly, which made Harry suspect broken ribs. It was obvious that he had only just got home: a thick black travelling cloak lay over the back of a chair and a haversack large enough to carry several small children leaned against the wall inside the door. Hagrid himself, twice the size of a normal man, was now limping over to the fire and placing a copper kettle over it.

"What happened to you?" Harry demanded, while Fang danced around them all, trying to lick their faces.

"Told yeh, nuthin'," said Hagrid firmly. "Want a cuppa?"

"Come off it," said Ron, "you're in a right state!"

"I'm tellin' yeh, I'm fine," said Hagrid, straightening up and turning to beam at them all, but wincing. "Blimey, it's good ter see yeh three again - had good summers, did yeh?"

"Hagrid, you've been attacked!" said Ron.

"Per the las' time, it's nuthin'!" said Hagrid firmly.

"Would you say it was nothing if one of us turned up with a pound of mince instead of a face?" Ron demanded.

"You ought to go and see Madam Pomfrey, Hagrid," said Hermione anxiously, "some of those cuts look nasty."

"I'm dealin' with it, all righ?" said Hagrid repressively.

He walked across to the enormous wooden table that stood in the middle of his cabin and twitched aside a tea towel that had been lying on it. Underneath was a raw, bloody, green-tinged steak slightly larger than the average car tire.

"You're not going to eat that, are you, Hagrid?" said Ron, leaning in for a closer look. "It looks poisonous."

"Its s'posed ter look like that, its dragon meat," Hagrid said. "An' I didn' get it ter eat."

He picked up the steak and slapped it over the left side of his face. Greenish blood trickled down into his beard as he gave a soft moan of satisfaction.

"Tha's better. It helps with the stingin', yeh know."

"So, are you going to tell us what's happened to you?" Harry asked.

"Can't, Harry. Top secret. More'n me job's worth ter tell yeh that."

"Did the giants beat you up, Hagrid?" asked Hermione quietly.

Hagrid's fingers slipped on the dragon steak and it slid squelchy on to his chest.

"Giants?" said Hagrid, catching the steak before it reached his belt and slapping it back over his face, "who said anythin' abou' giants? Who yeh bin talkin' to? Who's told yeh what I've - who's said I've bin - eh?"

"We guessed," said Hermione apologetically.

"Oh, yeh did, did yeh?" said Hagrid, surveying her sternly with the eye that was not hidden by the steak.

"It was kind of . . . obvious," said Ron. Harry nodded.

Hagrid glared at them, then snorted, threw the steak back on to the table and strode over to the kettle, which was now whistling.

"Never known kids like you three fer knowin' more'n yeh oughta," he muttered, splashing boiling water into three of his bucket-shaped mugs. "An' I'm not complimentin' yeh, neither. Nosy, some'd call it. Interferin'."

But his beard twitched.

"So you have been to look for giants?" said Harry, grinning as he sat down at the table.

Hagrid set tea in front of each of them, sat down, picked up his steak again and slapped it back over his face.

"Yeah, all righ'," he grunted, "I have."

"And you found them?" said Hermione in a hushed voice.

"Well, they're not that difficult ter find, ter be honest," said Hagrid. "Pretty big, see."

"Where are they?" said Ron.

"Mountains," said Hagrid unhelpfully.

"So why don't Muggles - ?"

"They do," said Hagrid darkly. "On'y their deaths are always put down ter mountaineerin' accidents, aren' they?"

He adjusted the steak a little so that it covered the worst of the bruising.

"Come on, Hagrid, tell us what you've been up to!" said Ron. "Tell us about being attacked by the giants and Harry can tell you about being attacked by the Dementors – "

Hagrid choked in his mug and dropped his steak at the same time; a large quantity of spit, tea and dragon blood was sprayed over the table as Hagrid coughed and spluttered and the steak slid, with a soft splat, on to the floor.

"Whadda yeh mean, attacked by Dementors?" growled Hagrid.

"Didn't you know?" Hermione asked him, wide-eyed.

"I don' know any thin' that's bin happenin' since I left. I was on a secret mission, wasn' I, didn' wan' owls followin' me all over the place - ruddy Dementors! Yeh're not serious?"

"Yeah, I am, they turned up in Little Whinging and attacked my cousin and me, and then the Ministry of Magic expelled me – "

"WHAT?"

" - and I had to go to a hearing and everything, but tell us about the giants first."

"You were expelled!"

"Tell us about your summer and I'll tell you about mine."

Hagrid glared at him through his one open eye. Harry looked right back, an expression of innocent determination on his face.

"Oh, all righ'," Hagrid said in a resigned voice.

He bent down and tugged the dragon steak out of Fang's mouth.

"Oh, Hagrid, don't, it's not hygien-" Hermione began, but Hagrid had already slapped the meat back over his swollen eye.

He took another fortifying gulp of tea, then said, "Well, we set off righ' after term ended – "

There was a sudden knock on the door and everyone froze as Fang began barking and scratching at the door.

"Get under the cloak, go." Hagrid whispered frantically as he threw their dishes in the sink at the back of the cabin.

Harry, Ron and Hermione didn't waste any time and threw the invisibility cloak over them before pressing themselves into a corner.

Hagrid glanced over in their direction before going to answer the door, all the while pushing fang back.

Harry tried to see around Hagrid's towering figure but was unable, his face however conveyed confusion. "Er, who are ya?" he asked.

"Naruto Uzumaki, Dumbledore hired me." Came the voice of the ninja. "May I come in?"

Hagrid blinked a few times before stepping aside to allow the blonde in. the first thing Naruto did when he walked in was glare at the corner where the three were hidden.

"I know you're there, I just spent the last ten minutes covering up your tracks."

Harry scowled, he knew what was coming next, the ninja would prevent Hagrid from telling them anymore about the giants or the plans of the order.

"What do you mean tracks?" Ron asked. "We were under the invisibility cloak."

"You can be invisible all you want but if you don't know how to cover your tracks and be silent when you're sneaking around then it's pointless." Naruto said before turning to Hagrid. "I assume you just finished your mission for the Order?" he said.

Hagrid sputtered on the spot. "How do you know about the Order?"

Naruto gave him a smile. "Like I said I was hired by Dumbledore to watch the school and in particular those three brats." He said jerking his head at the trio. "My teammate is at the headquarters with the other members organizing and attempting to stop the war before it can really start. I'm to take your report and give it to him, but you'll also personally have to give a mission report to Dumbledore."

"So yer a ninja?" Hagrid said as he looked from Naruto to Harry as though wanting confirmation.

Harry gave a slow nod as he, Ron and Hermione took a seat back at the table.

"So tell us more about the giants Hagrid." Ron said, hoping to pick up the conversation back off where they left.

Hagrid nodded and sat back down, putting the rotten looking stake back over his eye.

"I don't think so. You are not part of the Order and are not privy to mission reports without clearance first." Naruto said frowning. "How many times am I going to have to tell you three this?" he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at them,

"We aren't children; we deserve to know a lot more than you do!" Harry shouted standing up. "This isn't even your war!"

"Harry!" Hermione said, with wide eyes.

Naruto sighed and looked like he desperately wanted to roll his eyes. "Look, you don't want to be a part of a war. War does terrible things to people, things you three can't even begin to understand. Just give it time and- "

Naruto suddenly stopped, his eyes glazed over as he seemed to look through the three.

"Umbridge is on her way down here." He said as he refocused.

Everyone just sat there staring at him.

He gave them an incredulous look, "Move!"

Harry, Ron and Hermione scrambled back to their hiding spot in the corner and hid back under the cloak just as there was a knock on the door.

Hagrid went to answer the door a second time, pushing Fang out of the way, but Naruto stopped him. "Just act normal." He said.

Umbridge was standing in the doorway wearing her green tweed cloak and a matching hat with earflaps. Lips pursed, she leaned back so as to see Hagrid's face; she barely reached his navel.

"So," she said slowly and loudly, as though speaking to somebody deaf. "You're Hagrid, are you?"

Without waiting for an answer she strolled into the room, her bulging eyes rolling in every direction before finally landing on Naruto.

"Get away," she snapped, waving her handbag at Fang, who had bounded up to her and was attempting to lick her face.

"Er - I don' want ter be rude," said Hagrid, staring at her, "but who the ruddy hell are you?"

"My name is Dolores Umbridge."

Her eyes were sweeping the cabin. Twice they stared directly into the corner where Harry stood, sandwiched between Ron and Hermione.

"Dolores Umbridge?" Hagrid said, sounding thoroughly confused. "I thought you were one o' them Ministry - don' you work with Fudge?"

"I was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, yes," said Umbridge, now pacing around the cabin, taking in every tiny detail within, from the haversack against the wall to the abandoned travelling cloak. "I am now the Hogwarts High Inquisitor –"

"Wha's that?" said Hagrid, frowning.

Umbridge ignored him and wheeled round and strode the length of the cabin, looking around carefully. She bent and peered under the bed. She opened Hagrid's cupboards. She passed within two inches of where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood pressed against the wall; Harry actually pulled in his stomach as she walked by. After looking carefully inside the enormous cauldron Hagrid used for cooking, she wheeled round again and said, "What has happened to you? How did you sustain those injuries?"

Hagrid hastily removed the dragon steak from his face, which in Harry's opinion was a mistake, because the black and purple bruising all around his eye was now clearly visible, not to mention the large amount of fresh and congealed blood on his face. "Oh, -"

"I'm afraid that was my fault Ms. Umbridge." Naruto said speaking up. His emotionless demeanor back in place.

Umbridge zeroed in on him. "Your fault?" she asked.

"Yes, you see, I've set up several traps in the Forbidden Forest for any intruders, well enough away so no students get caught in them. Hagrid seems to have stumbled into one of them."

"And what if a Ministry Official were to be caught in one of these traps?" she snapped.

Naruto didn't even blink. "I can't see any reason for a Ministry Official to be sneaking around in the Forest in the middle of the night." He said. "Should I be keeping a look out for them?"

Umbridge narrowed her eyes but said no more.

"You ought to know, too, that as High Inquisitor it is my unfortunate but necessary duty to inspect all the teachers. So I daresay we shall meet again soon enough."

She turned sharply and marched back to the door.

"You're inspectin' us?" Hagrid repeated blankly, looking after her.

"Oh, yes;" said Umbridge softly, looking back at him with her hand on the door handle. "The Ministry is determined to weed out unsatisfactory teachers, Hagrid. Goodnight."

She left, closing the door behind her with a snap. Harry made to pull off the Invisibility Cloak but Hermione seized his wrist.

"Not yet," she breathed in his ear. "She might not be gone yet."

Hagrid seemed to be thinking the same way; he stumped across the room and pulled back the curtain an inch or so.

"She's goin' back ter the castle," he said in a low voice. "Blimey . . . inspectin' people, is she?"

"Yeah," said Harry, pulling off the Cloak. "Trelawney's on probation already . . ."

"Um . . . what sort of thing are you planning to do with us in class, Hagrid?" asked Hermione.

"Oh, don' you worry abou' that, I've got a great load o' lessons planned," said Hagrid enthusiastically, scooping up his dragon steak from the table and slapping it over his eye again. "I've bin keepin' a couple o' creatures saved fer yer OWL year; you wait, they're somethin' really special."

"Erm . . . special in what way?" asked Hermione tentatively.

"I'm not sayin'," said Hagrid happily. "I don' want ter spoil the surprise."

"Look, Hagrid," said Hermione urgently, dropping all pretence, "Professor Umbridge won't be at all happy if you bring anything to class that's too dangerous."

"Dangerous?" said Hagrid, looking genially bemused. "Don' be silly, I wouldn' give yeh anythin' dangerous! I mean, all righ', they can look after themselves – "

"Hagrid, you've got to pass Umbridge's inspection, and to do that it would really be better if she saw you teaching us how to look after Porlocks, how to tell the difference between Knarls and hedgehogs, stuff like that!" said Hermione earnestly.

"But tha's not very interestin', Hermione," said Hagrid. "The stuff I've got's much more impressive. I've bin bringin' 'em on ler years, I reckon I've got the on'y domestic herd in Britain."

"Hagrid . . . please . . ." said Hermione, a note of real desperation in her voice. "Umbridge is looking for any excuse to get rid of teachers she thinks are too close to Dumbledore. Please, Hagrid, teach us something dull that's bound to come up in our OWL."

But Hagrid merely yawned widely and cast a one-eyed look of longing towards the vast bed in the corner.

"Lis'en, it's bin a long day an' it's late," he said, patting Hermione gently on the shoulder, so that her knees gave way and hit the floor with a thud. "Oh - sorry – " He pulled her back up by the neck of her robes. "Look, don' you go worryin' abou' me, I promise yeh I've got really good stuff planned fer yer lessons now I'm back . . . now you lot had better get back up to the castle, an' don' forget ter wipe yer footprints out behind yeh!"

"I don't reckon he heard a word we said." Ron said as they trudged back up to the castle.

"Well, one things for certain." Harry said. "We need to find a way around Naruto; otherwise we won't be able to learn anything about what's going on."

Beside him Ron nodded.

Neither Harry, Ron or Hermione noticed Naruto's clone in the shadows who rolled his eyes at them. _Brats._

A/N

Holy crap! I finally got a chapter out, after like months! It feels so good to be writing again! My new found concentration probably has something to do with my new prescription of Adderall. Anyway, I'm really wanting to hurry up and get to the Christmas scene, i'm planning on having Sakura and Hinata show up. And I don't care what any of you say the little romance that will be in here will be Naruto/Hinata! That's just how its going to be, now it wont be full on fluff mostly just Naruto being oblivious, cause really that's my favorite aspect of their relationship. Anyway please review and please forgive for the long wait.


	9. Chapter 9

_BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS_

_All student organizations, societies, teams, groups and clubs are_

_Henceforth disbanded._

_An organization, society, team, group or club is hereby defined _

_as a regular meeting of three or more students._

_Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor_

_(Professor Umbridge)._

_No student organization, society, team, group or club may exist_

_Without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor._

_Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organization, _

_society, team, group or club that has not been approved by_

_the High Inquisitor will be expelled._

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree

Number Twenty-four.

Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor

Naruto smirked as he read the latest decree made by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor. She was gaining a lot of power very fast and anyone who knew what they were doing would know that that was a bad idea. Unfortunately for Umbridge and Fudge, that's exactly what the Order wanted.

Naruto let out a faint snort, this decree was no doubt meant to boost her wounded ego from the last Quidditch match.

XxX

Hagrid's reappearance at the staff table at breakfast next day was not greeted by enthusiasm from all students. Some, like Fred, George and Lee, roared with delight and sprinted up the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables to wring Hagrid's enormous hand; others, like Parvati and Lavender, exchanged gloomy looks and shook their heads. Harry knew that many of them preferred Professor Grubbly-Planks lessons, and the worst of it was that a very small, unbiased part of him knew that they had good reason: Grubbly-Plank's idea of an interesting class was not one where there was a risk that somebody might have their head ripped off.

It was with a certain amount of apprehension that Harry, Ron and Hermione headed down to Hagrid's on Tuesday, heavily muffled against the cold. Harry was worried, not only about what Hagrid might have decided to teach them, but also about how the rest of the class, particularly Malfoy and his cronies, would behave if Umbridge was watching them.

However, the High Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen as they struggled through the snow towards Hagrid, who stood waiting for them on the edge of the Forest. He did not present a reassuring sight; the bruises that had been purple on Saturday night were now tinged with green and yellow and some of his cuts still seemed to be bleeding. Harry could not understand this: had Hagrid perhaps been attacked by some creature whose venom prevented the wounds it inflicted from healing? As though to complete the ominous picture, Hagrid was carrying what looked like half a dead cow over his shoulder.

"We're workin' in here today!" Hagrid called happily to the approaching students, jerking his head back at the dark trees behind him. "Bit more sheltered! Anyway, they prefer the dark."

"What prefers the dark?" Harry heard Malfoy say sharply to Crabbe and Goyle, a trace of panic in his voice. "What did he say prefers the dark - did you hear?"

Harry remembered the only other occasion on which Malfoy had entered the Forest before now; he had not been very brave then, either. He smiled to himself; after the Quidditch match anything that caused Malfoy discomfort was all right with him.

"Ready?" said Hagrid cheerfully, looking around at the class. "Right, well, I've bin savin' a trip inter the Forest fer yer fifth year. Thought we'd go an' see these creatures in their natural habitat. Now, what we're studyin' today is pretty rare, I reckon I'm probably the on'y person in Britain who's managed ter train 'em."

"And you're sure they're trained, are you?" said Malfoy, the panic in his voice even more pronounced. "Only it wouldn't be the first time you'd brought wild stuff to class, would it?"

The Slytherins murmured agreement and a few Gryffindor's looked as though they thought Malfoy had a fair point, too.

"Course they're trained," said Hagrid, scowling and hoisting the dead cow a little higher on his shoulder.

"So what happened to your face, then?" demanded Malfoy.

"Mind yer own business!" said Hagrid, angrily. "Now, if yeh've finished askin' stupid questions, follow me!"

He turned and strode straight into the Forest. Nobody seemed much disposed to follow. Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione, who sighed but nodded, and the three of them set off after Hagrid, leading the rest of the class.

They walked for about ten minutes until they reached a place where the trees stood so closely together that it was as dark as twilight and there was no snow at all on the ground. About ten more feet into the forest, Harry could see Naruto leaning against a tree trunk. With a grunt, Hagrid deposited his half a cow on the ground, stepped back and turned to face his class, most of whom were creeping from tree to tree towards him, peering around nervously as though expecting to be set upon at any moment.

Harry noticed that a few of them seemed to be a little more at ease with the sight of Naruto nearby.

"Gather roun', gather roun'," Hagrid encouraged. "Now, they'll be attracted by the smell o' the meat but I'm going ter give em a call anyway, 'cause they'll like ter know it's me."

He turned, shook his shaggy head to get the hair out of his face and gave an odd, shrieking cry that echoed through the dark trees like the call of some monstrous bird. Nobody laughed: most of them looked too scared to make a sound.

Hagrid gave the shrieking cry again. A minute passed in which the class continued to peer nervously over their shoulders and around trees for a first glimpse of whatever it was that was coming. And then, as Hagrid shook his hair back for a third lime and expanded his enormous chest, Harry nudged Ron and pointed into the black space between two gnarled yew trees.

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the darkness. It surveyed the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs.

A great wave of relief broke over Harry. Here at last was proof that he had not imagined these creatures, that they were real: Hagrid knew about them too. He looked eagerly at Ron, but Ron was still staring around into the trees and after a few seconds he whispered, "Why doesn't Hagrid call again?"

Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as Ron's and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face; and Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.

"Oh, an' here comes another one!" said Hagrid proudly, as a second black horse appeared out of the dark trees, folded its leathery-wings closer to its body and dipped its head to gorge on the meat. "Now . . . put yer hands up, who can see 'em?"

Immensely pleased to feel that he was at last going to understand the mystery of these horses, Harry raised his hand. Hagrid nodded at him.

Hagrid turned to the side to look at Naruto who was actually petting one of the strange beasts like one would a loved pet. Harry had a sinking suspicion that Hagrid and Naruto shared the same love of dangerous and exotic monsters.

"Yeah . . . yeah, I knew you'd be able ter, Harry," Hagrid said seriously, turning back around. "An' you too, Neville, eh? An' – "

"Excuse me," said Malfoy in a sneering voice, "but what exactly are we supposed to be seeing?"

For an answer, Hagrid pointed at the cow carcass on the ground. The whole class stared at it for a few seconds, then several people gasped and Parvati squealed. Harry understood why: bits of flesh stripping themselves away from the bones and vanishing into thin air had to look very odd indeed.

"What's doing it?" Parvati demanded in a terrified voice, retreating behind the nearest tree. "What's eating it?"

"Thestrals," said Hagrid proudly and Hermione gave a soft "Oh!" of comprehension at Harry's shoulder. "Hogwarts has got a whole herd of 'em in here. Now, who knows - ?"

"But they're really, really unlucky!" interrupted Parvati, looking alarmed. "They're supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once – "

"No, no, no," said Hagrid, chuckling, "tha's jus' superstition, that is, they aren' unlucky, they're dead clever an' useful! Course, this lot don' get a lot o' work, it's mainly jus' pullin' the school carriages unless Dumbledore's takin' a long journey an' don' want ter Apparate - an' here's another couple, look – "

Two more horses came quietly out of the trees, one of them passing very close to Parvati, who shivered and pressed herself closer to the tree, saying, "I think I felt something, I think it's near me!"

"Don' worry, it won' hurt yeh," said Hagrid patiently. "Righ', now, who can tell me why some o' yeh can see 'em an' some can't?"

Hermione raised her hand.

"Go on then," said Hagrid, beaming at her.

"The only people who can see Thestrals," she said, "are people who have seen death."

"Tha's exactly right," said Hagrid solemnly, "ten points ter Gryffindor. Now, Thestrals – "

"Hem, hem." Professor Umbridge had arrived. She was standing a few feet away from Harry, wearing her green hat and cloak again, her clipboard at the ready. Hagrid. who had never heard Umbridge's fake cough before, was gazing in some concern at the closest Thestral, evidently under the impression that it had made the sound.

"Hem, hem."

"Oh, hello!" Hagrid said, smiling, having located the source of the noise.

"You received the note I sent to your cabin this morning?" said Umbridge, in the same loud, slow voice she had used with him earlier, as though she were addressing somebody both foreign and very slow. "Telling you that I would be inspecting your lesson?"

"Oh, yeah," said Hagrid brightly. "Glad yeh found the place all righ'! Well, as you can see - or, I dunno - can you? We're doin' Thestrals today – "

"I'm sorry?" said Professor Umbridge loudly, cupping her hand around her ear and frowning. "What did you say?"

Hagrid looked a little confused.

"Er - Thestrals!" he said loudly. "Big - er - winged horses, yeh know!"

He flapped his gigantic arms hopefully. Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows at him and muttered as she made a note on her clipboard: "Has . . . to . . . resort . . . to . . . crude . . . sign . . . language."

"Well . . . anyway . . ." said Hagrid, turning back to the class and looking slightly flustered, "erm . . . what was I sayin?"

"Appears . . . to . . . have . . . poor . . . short . . . term . . . memory," muttered Umbridge, loudly enough for everyone to hear her. Draco Malfoy looked as though Christmas had come a month early; Hermione, on the other hand, had turned scarlet with suppressed rage.

"Oh, yeah," said Hagrid, throwing an uneasy glance at Umbridge's clipboard, but ploughing on valiantly. "Yeah, I was gonna tell yeh how come we got a herd. Yeah, so, we started off with a male an' five females. This one,' he patted the first horse to have appeared, 'name o' Tenebrus, he's my special favourite, firs' one born here in the Forest – "

"Are you aware," Umbridge said loudly, interrupting him, "that the Ministry of Magic has classified Thestrals as 'dangerous'?"

Harry's heart sank like a stone, but Hagrid merely chuckled.

"Thestrals aren' dangerous! All righ', they might take a bite outta yeh if yeh really annoy them – "

"Shows . . . signs . . . of. . . pleasure . . . at . . . idea . . . of. . . violence," muttered Umbridge, scribbling on her clipboard again.

"No - come on!" said Hagrid, looking a little anxious now. "I mean, a dog'll bite if yeh bait it, won' it - but Thestrals have jus' got a bad reputation because o' the death thing - people used ter think they were bad omens, didn' they? Jus' didn' understand, did they?"

Umbridge did not answer; she finished writing her last note, then looked up. "And why are you here today, Mr. Uzumaki.?" She asked ignoring Hagrid.

Naruto stopped feeding one of the few calf's that had showed up and walked over to stand beside Hagrid. "Professor Hagrid asked me to accompany him in his lessons today. Who am I to refuse learning of such a fascinating creature in your world?"

"You've not sat in on any of the other classes, am I correct? Why this class? Do you enjoy violence?" her pursed lips had taken on a greedy smile as though hoping Naruto would confess that he often dreamt about hurting the students and teachers alike.

"We do not have animals like this where I am from, and Professor Hagrid specifically asked me to this class because I can see the female Thestrals." He said with a pleasant smile.

Harry had no idea what he was talking about being able to see the females but Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth. Harry looked back to Umbridge whose face had taken on a pale shade of green.

"Tha's righ', now can anyone tell me why some can see the females?" Hagrid asked in an attempt to get back to his lesson.

Hermione raised her hand slowly. "While you can only see male thestrals if you've seen death, you can only see the female of the specie if you've killed." She said hesitantly.

Any semblance of comfort the class felt from having Naruto there finished the second Hermione finished her answer.

"Come Ms. Umbridge, would you like to pet one?" Naruto asked.

"Bloody hell." Ron whispered beside him. "He has that same look Fred and George get when they're having someone on."

Harry looked back and had to agree, there was indeed a mischievous twinkle in the blonde ninja's eye.

"I most certainly would not!" Umbridge all but shrieked.

But it appeared Naruto wasn't having any of that as he strode forward, the students between them parting like the red sea, and grabbed her wrist. "You want to set a fine example don't you, Ms. Umbridge. They really are quite sweet once they get used to you."

Umbridge was trying her absolute hardest to free herself from Naruto's grasp; loosing every ounce of color the further he dragged her. "Release me, release me at once!" she screamed frantically.

Hagrid took this moment to step in. "Now Uzumaki," Hagrid said, putting his hand on Naruto's shoulder. "She's frighten', aint no one in this class gonna be made ta confront an animal they don't want to."

Naruto put on a brilliant show of being confused before finally letting go of Umbridge's wrist.

Looking more than a little harassed, she straitened herself as best she could before looking to Hagrid. "Thank you." She said with flared nostrils, it appeared those simple two words took every ounce of her will power. "I think I've seen enough." She said before spinning on her heel and making her way back through the forest and most likely to the safety of her office.

Naruto caught his eye and gave him a wink.

XxX

It was the last DA meeting before the strange holidays of the wizarding world and Naruto was currently waiting around the corner of the library where he had deposited the majority of the members, most of whom had already dispersed from the scene. They only two who were left was Harry and some girl named Chang who apparently had a crush on Harry but thought it prudent to bring up her dead boyfriend every chance she got.

It was a few minutes before he heard her scurrying footsteps and another minute before Harry began to move. The boy rounded the corner looking thourghly shocked and touching his lips.

"First kiss?" Naruto asked with a grin.

Harry all but jumped out of his skin as he spun to look at Naruto; apparently he hadn't noticed him before.

Slowly Harry nodded his head. "Yeah." He said and a goofy grin began to form on his lips.

"How was it?"

Harry paused in thought. "Wet."

Naruto couldn't stop the snort. "They'll get better."

"What was your first kiss like?" Harry asked.

Naruto's mind flashed to the moment he and Saskue had locked lips by accident in the Academy and the horde of angry girls who attempted to kill him afterward. He repressed a grimace. "Unwelcomed." Was all he said and before Harry could ask anymore, Naruto, who was actually a clone, dispelled himself in a puff of smoke?

XxX

_His body felt smooth, powerful and flexible. He was gliding between shining metal bars, across dark, cold stone . . . he was flat against the floor, sliding along on his belly . . . it was dark, yet he could see objects around him shimmering in strange, vibrant colors . . . he was turning his head . . . at first glance the corridor was empty . . . but no . . . a man was sitting on the floor ahead, his chin drooping on to his chest, his outline gleaming in the dark . . ._

_Harry put out his tongue . . . he tasted the man's scent on the air . . . he was alive but drowsy . . . sitting in front of a door at the end of the corridor.._

_Harry longed to bite the man . . . but he must master the impulse . . . he had more important work to do . . ._

_But the man was stirring . . . a silver Cloak fell from his legs as he jumped to his feet; and Harry saw his vibrant, blurred outline towering above him, saw a wand withdrawn from a belt . . . he had no choice . . . he reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times, plunging his fangs deeply into the man's flesh, feeling his ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of blood . . ._

_The man was yelling in pain . . . then he fell silent . . . he slumped backwards against the wall . . . blood was splattering on to the floor . . ._

_His forehead hurt terribly . . . it was aching fit to burst . . ._

"Harry! HARRY!"

He opened his eyes. Every inch of his body was covered in icy sweat; his bed covers were twisted all around him like a strait-jacket; he felt as though a white-hot poker were being applied to his forehead.

"Harry!"

Ron was standing over him looking extremely frightened. There were more figures at the foot of Harry's bed. He clutched his head in his hands; the pain was blinding him . . . he rolled right over and vomited over the edge of the mattress.

He had to tell Ron, it was very important that he tell him . . . taking great gulps of air, Harry pushed himself up in bed, willing himself not to throw up again, the pain half-blinding him.

"Your dad," he panted, his chest heaving. "Your dad's . . . been attacked . . ."

"What?" said Ron uncomprehendingly.

"Your dad! He's been bitten, it's serious, there was blood everywhere . . ."

"Potter." A deep and sharp voice cut through.

Harry spun around on his bed away from Ron to see Naruto standing in the doorway. "Ron's dad –"

He started but Naruto interrupted him, striding across the room and grabbing him by his arm.

"Come with me Potter, you too Weasley." Naruto said, leading both boys out of their room down the stairs and through the portrait hole.

XxX

This was not good, Naruto decided. The second he had heard Potter scream he had dispatched clones to Dumbledore, Minerva and Severus. When he heard Harry say that Arthur had been attacked he discreetly made another clone who would send word to Shikamaru at the Order.

They met up with Minerva at the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office; she looked like she wanted to say something but a questioning glance down the hall squished all those thoughts.

"Fizzing Whizzbee," She said.

The gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside; the wall behind it split in two to reveal a stone staircase that was moving continually upwards like a spiral escalator. The three of them stepped on to the moving stairs; the wall closed behind them with a thud and they were moving upwards in tight circles until they reached the highly polished oak door with the brass knocker shaped like a griffin.

Naruto opened the door, not bothering to knock first. Dumbledore was sitting in a high-backed chair behind his desk; he leaned forward into the pool of candlelight illuminating the papers laid out before him. He was wearing a magnificently embroidered purple and gold dressing gown over a snowy white nightshirt, but seemed wide-awake, his penetrating light blue eyes fixed intently upon Harry.

Naruto gave a slight nod to the clone of himself that was standing sentry next to Dumbledore; it disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

"Now you saw Arthur Weasley being attacked," Dumbledore said without bothering with pleasantries. "How did you see this?"

"Well . . . I don't know," said Harry, rather angrily. "Inside my head, I suppose – "

"No." Naruto interrupted. "In the dream, where were you in the dream?"

Harry looked confused. "I was the snake that attacked him."

"In the dream, do you know where you were?" Naruto asked.

Harry looked uncertainly between him and Dumbledore. "It was a dark hallway, with a door at the end.

"Was Mr. Weasley badly injured?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes." Harry said, worry evident on his face.

Dumbledore stood up and began speaking with one of the many portraits on the wall but Naruto tuned him out. Instead he focused on Harry. Dumbledore had told him and Shikamaru about the scar on the boy's forehead that cause some sort of inexplicable link between him and Riddle. It appears though recently the scar has begun to give each of the wizard's visions of the others.

Had Riddle possessed a snake to attack Arthur? Was he using the snake to try and get into the Department of Mysteries? And now that Harry had seen it, what would he do now? Did he even know about the connection they shared?

All these questions kept buzzing around his head as he stared intently at the side of Harry's.

Behind him the door open to produce another clone of Naruto, followed by Fred, George and Ginny, all of whom looked completely bewildered.

"Ah good, now Mr. Uzumaki if you could please take all the Weasley's and Mr. Potter to the Order I would be very grateful." Dumbledore said.

While his voice may have been calm, Naruto was trained to see beyond the average human. The man was nervous but he hid it very well from the rest in the room.

"Right away." He said.

Naruto reached forward and grabbed the collars of Ron and Harry and gave a jerk of his head to the three red heads behind him. They moved forward and grabbed onto various parts of his clothing with both hands, all familiar with Naruto's jutsu.

In a flash of light Naruto, Harry and the Weasley's were now standing in the hallway of Sirius' home.

"Sorry I'm going to have to leave you here, Sirius and Shikamaru will explain what's going on I'll be back as soon as I can." Naruto said and in another flash of light he was back in Dumbledore's office.

"They are safe now." Naruto said. "But when I took them to the order all my clones dispersed, Umbridge is on her way."

"She'll have a fit if she finds out that five students slipped out from under her nose." Minerva said.

"That may not be such a bad thing. What would Fudge think if he found out she can't even keep track of the few students she had watch over?" Came a voice from the window that had been closed only several seconds prior.

Minerva gave a violent jump beside Naruto while Dumbledore only looked vaguely surprised. Naruto had known he was there from the moment he had returned to Hogwarts.

"So what do we tell her when she gets here?" Minerva asked, sending a disapproving glance at Kakashi who was still squatted in the windowsill.

"Keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible." Kakashi said.

"Mr. Weasley is currently in St. Mungo's. Mrs. Weasley pulled her children and Harry, as he was already planning to spend Christmas with their family, out of school a few days early as they weren't certain of Mr. Weasley's condition." Dumbledore said with a note of finality.

Naruto nodded his head in the affirmative, letting his client know that he understood and accepted the lie.

There was the soft pounding of footsteps on the other side of Dumbledore's office door, indicating that Umbridge would be bursting through into the room any moment. Naruto slide a look at Kakashi who once again silently slipped out the window and out of the magic user's sight.

"Dumbledore!" Umbridge all but screamed as the door swung open with a loud bang. "What is the meaning of this?"

Naruto tried his very hardest not to show the horror on his face. She was dressed in a frilly pale pink night dress with a robe over it that had no business having that much ruffles on it.

"I'm afraid you'll have to clarify, you see I've done a great many things since I last saw you." Dumbledore said, not missing a beat.

Her eyes bulged. "Where have Potter and the Weasley's gone?"

"There was an unfortunate accident and Mr. Weasley is currently in St. Mungo's. Due to his condition, Mrs. Wesley felt it prudent to remove her children from school along with Mr. Potter who is very close with the Weasley family."

"And why, wasn't I informed first?" she asked.

"While you are gaining power in this school rapidly, you are not yet Headmaster of this school." Minerva said with a heated glare.

Umbridge rounded her eyes on Minerva and opened her mouth. "Ms. Umbridge, maybe this conversation would be best had in the morning, after you've had time to regain your composure. As it is, if you don't keep your voice down I will be forced to stop you myself. I do not suggest the latter." Naruto said.

Her eyes swiveled to him and she immediately shut her mouth as though afraid he'd cut out her lounge. She sent another glare to Minerva and Dumbledore before spinning on her heel and leaving the office.

"Well, now that that's over," Kakashi said and Naruto only grinned a little when Minerva jumped once again. "Naruto, you should go back to the Order to watch over Potter and the others. Its Holiday break tomorrow and hardly any students are staying, I can watch over the school while they are all away."

"Sounds good to me. Do you think you can send a message to Grandma Tsunade and ask her to send Sakura?" Naruto asked as he faced Dumbledore. "There's no one better in all the Hidden Villages who is a better medic than her."

"Of course." Dumbledore said, already pulling out the special mission that would allow him to communicate instantly with the Hokage.

Naruto then donned a smile. "And don't worry; everything will turn out for the best."

It was such a sudden change from the tense atmosphere seconds ago that Minerva and even Dumbledore looked a little surprised. Kakashi just smiled, used to Naruto always looking on the bright side.

XxX

When Naruto returned to the Order's Headquarters, the first thing he saw was that all the Weasley's, Harry and Sirius sitting down at the kitchen table drinking butterbeers, all looking very solemn. Naruto turned and saw Shikamaru leaning against a dark corner. The other hadn't seemed to notice his arrival and with them being this glum he had no real desire to talk to them, fearing that it might rub off on him. He decided that it was best to talk to Shikamaru to see what the next plan of action is.

"What's the latest news on Arthur?" He asked in a low voice.

"Molly sent a note that said 'still alive'." He said with a yawn, Shikamaru did not like being woken up during designated sleep time. "What about on your end?"

"Kakashi-sensei is watching the school for me and I asked Dumbledore to ask Grandma Tsunade to send for Sakura. With the special summoning scroll, she should already be at St. Mungo's extracting the poison if the snake had any."

Shikamaru nodded his head. "Who do you think Lady Hokage sent with Sakura?" he asked.

"Dunno." Naruto said.

At ten past five in the morning by the kitchen clock, the kitchen door swung open and Mrs. Weasley entered the kitchen followed by Sakura and Hinata. Molly was extremely pale, but when they all turned to look at her, Fred, Ron and Harry half rising from their chairs, she gave a wan smile.

"He's going to be all right," she said, her voice weak with tiredness. "He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now; he's going to take the morning off work."

Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of his Butterbeer in one.

"Breakfast!" said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. "Where's that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!"

But Kreacher did not answer the summons.

"Oh, forget it, then," muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. "So, it's breakfast for - let's see - seven . . . bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast – "

He paused when he saw Hinata and Sakura. "And who might you two lovely ladies be." He asked.

Molly gave a startled "Oh!" and moved to stand between the two konoichi. "This is Sakura, she's the one who healed Arthur." She said and Sakura smiled warmly at the wizards before her. "And this is Hinata; I might've just broken down if she hadn't been there to comfort me."

Hinata gave a timid smile before her eyes drifted over to where Naruto and Shikamaru were standing. Naruto was confused when she started to turn red, was she sick again? But she had turned away and began speaking with Ginny who was thanking her for being there for Molly. But Naruto cleared his thoughts from the Hyuga Heiress and focused on Sakura who was making her way over.

"I've got something for you Shikamaru." She said in a sing song voice while waving a scroll in front of him.

Shikamaru eyed the scroll as though it might bite him, before taking it. Naruto was tempted to peek over his shoulder, but knew he'd never get away with it with Sakura standing right there.

Shikamaru donned a light blush. "Troublesome woman." He muttered before tucking the scroll away in one of his many pockets.

"How is Temari?" Naruto asked.

Shikamaru slid him a look. "Fine." He said before walking away to sit at the table.

Naruto chuckled and together he and Sakura went to sit at the table with everyone else, Naruto taking the empty seat between Hinata and Ginny. The spread on the table could hardly be called breakfast, it seemed that Molly liked to cook a lot when she was happy.

"So are you blind?" Fred asked Hinata with a mouthful of eggs. Behind him Molly turned around and whacked him on the head with a wooden spoon. "I was just curious." He said in defense.

Naruto turned to look at her, shoveling bacon in to his mouth. "No, it's a family trait." She said.

"Yeah those eyes of hers can see a lot better than yours." Naruto said joining in on the conversation.

Now both twins were eyeing her eyes suspiciously.

"They are called the Byakugan and when they are activated I have three-hundred and sixty degrees of vision and can even see through solid objects." She said and smiled a tiny bit when food fell from George's mouth. Both twins then bombarded her with questions concerning every aspect of the Byakugan and what all they entailed.

A/N

Okay there it is, hope you enjoyed. And like I said, what little romance that's in here will be Naruto and Hinata with hints of other couples. if you don't like it than please don't comment on it, when you leave a comment I'm looking for things you picked up that you did like or things you'd like to see in future chapters or mistakes I made. Thank you hope you enjoyed.


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